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Primary sourceBook1848 (second edition; first published 1841)

The Essence of Christianity

Ludwig Feuerbach · 1848 (second edition; first published 1841)

Ludwig Feuerbach's 1841 critique of religion, which Stirner attacked as replacing God with another abstraction, 'Man'.

The main target of Stirner's critique: he accused Feuerbach of merely replacing God with another 'spook', Man.

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Title page of the German book 'Das Wesen des Christenthums' by Ludwig Feuerbach, second revised edition, Leipzig, published by Verlag von Otto Wigand, 1848. Set in blackletter type with decorative rules.
Ludwig Feuerbach, Das Wesen des Christenthums, 2nd edition, Leipzig, 1848.

About this source

What it is

This is the title page of the second edition (1848) of Das Wesen des Christenthums, a book by the German philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach, first published in 1841.

Feuerbach argued that God is really a projection of human qualities onto an imagined being, and that religion alienates people from their own best traits.

Why it matters

Feuerbach was a leading Young Hegelian whose work deeply influenced later thinkers, including Karl Marx. Max Stirner, however, turned Feuerbach's own method against him: in The Ego and Its Own (1844), Stirner argued that Feuerbach had simply replaced God with a new abstraction — 'Man' — and had not escaped religious thinking at all.

This book is therefore essential background for understanding Stirner's central argument about 'spooks': ideas that control people as if they were real beings.

Look closer

  • Why might replacing 'God' with 'Man' still count as a kind of religious thinking, according to Stirner?
  • What does the ornate title page tell you about how serious books looked in the 1840s?
  • Why do you think this book caused such strong reactions when it was published?

This book is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of Max Stirner on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.

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Title page of Max Stirner's 'Der Einzige und sein Eigenthum' in black blackletter type. Text reads 'Der Einzige und sein Eigenthum', 'von Max Stirner', 'Leipzig, Verlag von Otto Wigand, 1845'.Book

Primary source

The Ego and Its Own

Max Stirner · 1844

Pen-and-ink caricature drawing on paper of a group of men in a room with candles and a chandelier. A stout man on the left gestures with raised hands, while others crowd around a central figure, one man raising his arm, and a seated man at a table with bottles and glasses on the right. Labels are written along the bottom.Painting

Primary source

Engels's caricature drawing of Die Freien

Friedrich Engels · 1842

Book

Secondary source

Der Anarchismus

Paul Eltzbacher · 1900

Handwritten manuscript page in German script with a heading at the top and dense cursive text in multiple paragraphs, consistent with the first page of the manuscript of The German Ideology.Book

Primary source

The German Ideology

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels · 1845-1846

Masthead and contents page of The Egoist, An Individualist Review, No. 14, Vol. 1, Wednesday July 15th 1914, sixpence. Lists editors Harriet Shaw Weaver and Richard Aldington, contributing editor Dora Marsden, and table of contents.Newspaper article

Secondary source

The Egoist

15 July 1914

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