Crossing the German frontier, it
was published in complete and abridged forms in all the principal
languages of Europe. Even staid Scotland, unable to escape the
contagion, issued a popular edition of the exciting work.
Nor were the views advanced by Strauss in his _Life of Jesus_ less
extraordinary than its very flattering reception. He was diametrically
opposed to Neander in the latter's estimate of the ideal and historical.
According to Strauss the idea is the very soul of all that is valuable
in the past; and history is the gross crust which envelops it. What is
history in its early stages but so many faint legends? Happy are we if,
within them, we can discover the seed-truth. The same neglect of the
movements of history in their outward form led Strauss into still
another tendency which proved to be in direct conflict with Neander. The
latter, as we have seen, was devoted to his theory of the importance and
power of personality in history. But Strauss rejected it as of small
moment. He attached great importance to the issue involved, but
regarded the persons engaged in bringing it to pass as mere machinery.
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