Note 278 — Chapter XXI · FREETHOUGHT IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

Not only does Hegel’s conception of the Absolute make deity simply the eternal process of the universe, and the divine consciousness indistinguishable from the total consciousness of mankind,278 but his abstractions lend themselves equally to all creeds;279 and some of the most revolutionary of the succeeding movements of German thought—as those of Vatke, Strauss,280 Feuerbach, and Marx—professedly founded on him. It is certainly a striking testimony to the influence of Hegel that five such powerful innovators as Vatke281 in Old-Testament, Bruno Bauer and Strauss in New-Testament criticism, Feuerbach in the philosophy of religion, and Marx in social philosophy, should at first fly the Hegelian flag. It can hardly have been that Hegel’s formulas sufficed to generate the criticism they all brought to bear upon their subject matter; rather we must suppose that their naturally powerful minds were attracted by the critical and reconstructive aspects of his doctrine; but the philosophy which stimulated them must have had great affinities for revolution, as well as for all forms of the idea of evolution.