SOURCE: Engels, Friedrich. “Feuerbach's Philosophy of Religion and Ethics.” In Ludwig Feuerbach and the Outcome of Classical German Philosophy, edited by C. P. Dutt, pp. 43-51. New York: International Publishers, 1935.

In the following essay, originally published in 1888, Engels deems Feuerbach's conception of morality worthless due to its excessive abstraction.

The real idealism of Feuerbach becomes evident as soon as we come to his philosophy of religion and ethics. He by no means wishes to abolish religion; he wants to perfect it. Philosophy itself must be absorbed in religion.

The periods of humanity are distinguished only by religious changes. A historical movement is fundamental only when it is rooted in the hearts of men. The heart is not a form of religion, so that the latter should exist also in the heart; the heart is the essence of religion.

(Quoted by Starcke, p. 168.)

According to Feuerbach, religion is the...