FEUERBACH, PAUL JOHANN ANSELM, RITTER VON (1775-1833), German jurist and writer on criminal law, was born at Hainichen near Jena on Nov. 14, 1775, and brought up at Frankfort on Main. At 16 he ran away from home to study at Jena. In spite of poor health and desperate poverty, he made his way, and took his doctorate in philosophy in 1795. Marriage in 1796 forced him to turn from his favourite studies of philosophy and history to law, which offered better prospects. In 1796 he published Kritik des natiirlichen Rechts als Propudeutik zu einer W issenscha f t der natiirlichen Reclite, followed by Anti-Hobbes, oder fiber die Grenzen der burgerlichen Gewalt (1798), a disserta tion on the limits of the civil power. Feuerbach, as the founder of a new theory of penal law, the so-called "psychological-coercive or intimidation theory," occupied a prominent place in the history of criminal science. His views, as expounded in his Revision der Grundsatze and Grundbegriffe des positiven peinlichen Rechts were further elucidated and expounded in the Bibliothek fur die peinliche Rechtswissenschaft (i800–oi), in which he had the assistance of Karl Grolmann and Harscher von Almendingen, and in his famous Lehrbuch des gemeinen in Deutschland gelten den peinlichen Rechts (18o1). These works were a powerful protest against vindictive punishment, and furthered the reforma tion of the German criminal law. The administration of justice was, before Feuerbach's time, distinguished by two characteristics: the superiority of the judge to all law, and the blending of the judicial and executive offices. Feuerbach, using as his chief weapon the Revision der Grundbegriffe, achieved the recognition of the formula, nullum crimen, nulla poena sine lege (no wrong and no punishment without a remedy). He lectured at Jena, Kiel and Landshut between 1801 and 1805.
On being commanded by King Maximilian Joseph to draft a penal code for Bavaria (Stra f gesetzbuch f iir das he removed in 1805 to Munich, where he was an appointment in the ministry of justice and was ennobled in 1808. Meanwhile the practical reform of penal legislation in Bavaria was begun under his influence in 1806 by the abolition of torture. In 1808 appeared the first volume of his Merkwurdige Criminal Mlle, completed in I 81 I—a work of deep interest for its applica tion of psychological considerations to cases of crime, and intended to illustrate the inevitable imperfection of human laws in their application to individuals. In his Betrachtungen caber das Gesch worenengericht (181 1) Feuerbach declared against trial by jury, maintaining that the verdict of a jury was not adequate legal proof of a crime. Much controversy was aroused, and Feuerbach subsequently modified his view. The Bavarian penal code was promulgated in 1813. It was at once made the basis for new codes in Wurttemberg and Saxe-Weimar; it was adopted in its entirety in the grand-duchy of Oldenburg ; and it was translated into Swedish by order of the king. Several of the Swiss cantons re formed their codes in conformity with it.
During the war of liberation (1813-14) Feuerbach published several political brochures which, from the writer's position, had almost the weight of State manifestoes. One of these is entitled fiber deutsche Freiheit and Vertretung deutscher Volker durch Landstande (1814). In 1814 Feuerbach was appointed second president of the court of appeal at Bamberg, and three years later he became first president of the court of appeals at Anspach. In 1821 he was deputed by the Government to visit France, Belgium, and the Rhine provinces for the purpose of investigating their juridical institutions. As the fruit of this visit, he published his treatises Betrachtungen caber Offentlichkeit and Mundigkeit der Gerechtigkeitspflege (182I) and fiber die Gerichtsverfassung and das gerichtliche V er f ahren Frankreichs (1825). In these he pleaded unconditionally for publicity in all legal proceedings. Feuerbach died suddenly at Frankfort on May 29, See Leben and Wirken Ans. von Feuerbachs (2 viols., 1853), consist ing of a selection of his letters and journals, with occasional notes by his fourth son Ludwig, a distinguished philosopher. See also E. Holder, Savigny and Feuerbach, die Koryphden der deutschen Rechtswissen schaft (1881).