 Raised Protestant and religiously devout in his youth, Ludwig matriculated in the theological faculty of the University of Heidelberg in 1823, where his father hoped he would come under the influence of the late rationalist theologian, H.E.G. Paulus. Ludwig was won over instead by the speculative theologian, Karl Daub, who had been instrumental in bringing Hegel to Heidelberg for two years in 1816, and was by this time one of the foremost theologians of the Hegelian school. By 1824 Ludwig had secured his father’s grudging permission to transfer to Berlin under the pretext of wanting to study with the theologians Friedrich Schleiermacher and August Neander, but in fact because of his growing infatuation with Hegel’s philosophy. Feuerbach’s matriculation at Berlin was delayed because of suspicions of his involvement in the politically subversive student fraternity (Burschenschaft) movement, in which two of his older brothers were active, as a result of which one of them (Karl, a talented mathematician) was imprisoned and subsequently attempted suicide. In 1825, to his father’s consternation, Ludwig transferred to the philosophical faculty, thereafter hearing within a two-year period all of Hegel’s lectures except for those on aesthetics, repeating the lectures on logic  twice.[3] 