means would have been
resorted to for concealing his existence and suppressing a knowledge
of his parentage. And here we may add, that the supposition has never
prevailed that he was the offspring of a criminal connection, and that
these means were taken for suppressing the mother's disgrace. A note
which Caspar brought with him, when he appeared at Nuremberg, indicated
that such was the case, but it was so evidently a piece of deception
that it never obtained much credit. The second conclusion at which
Feuerbach arrives is, that people were implicated who had command of
great and unusual means,--means which could prompt an attempt at murder
in a crowded city and in the open day, and which could over-bribe all
rewards offered for a disclosure. Third, Caspar was a person on whose
life or death great interests depended, else there would not have been
such care to conceal his existence. Interest, and not revenge or hate,
was the motive. He must have been a person of high rank. To prove this,
Feuerbach refers to dreams of Caspar's. On one occasion, particularly,
he dreamt that he was conducted through a large castle, the appearance
of which he imagined that he recognized, and afterwards minutely
described. This Feuerbach thinks was only the awakening of past
recollections. It would be interesting to know whether any palace
corresponding to the description given exists. In the absence of such
knowledge, this point of Feuerbach's argument appears a rather weak one.
From the above propositions he concludes that Caspar was the legitimate
child of princely parents, who was removed in order to open the
succession to others, in whose way he stood.

[Footnote D: ANSELM RITTER VON FEUERBACH'S _Leben und Wirken, aus
seinen ausgedruckten Briefen, Tagebuechern, Vortraegen und Denkschriften,
veroeffentlicht von seinem Sohne_, LUDWIG FEUERBACH. Leipzig, 1852.]

The second division of the paper relates to the imprisonment, and
here he takes a ground entirely opposed to the opinions of others. He
believes that he was thus kept as a protection against some greater
evil. His wants were supplied, he was well taken care of, and his keeper
is therefore to be looked upon as his protector. Daumer sees in the
keeper nothing but a hired murderer, whose courage or whose wickedness
failed him. It is certainly difficult to imagine a kind friend immuring
one in a dark subterranean vault, feeding one on bread, excluding light,
fellowship, amusement, t