KARL

FORTLAGE (,8o6-1881)  , German philosopher, was born at Osnabruck . After teaching in Heidelberg and Berlin, he became professor of philosophy at Jena (1846), a post which he held till his death . Originally a follower of Hegel, he turned to Fichte and Beneke (q.v.), with whose insistence on psychology as the basis of all philosophy he fully agreed . The fundamental idea of his psychology is impulse, which combines representation (which presupposes consciousness) and feeling (i.e. pleasure) . Reason is the highest thing in nature, i.e. is divine in its nature, God is the absolute Ego and the empirical egos are his instruments . Fortlage's chief works are: Genetische Geschichte d . Philos. seit Kant (Leipzig, I852); System d . Psych. als empirische Wissenschaft (2 vols., Leipzig, 1855) ; Darstellung and Kritik der Beweise file das Dasein Gottes (Heidelberg, 184o) ; Beitrage zur Psych. als Wissenschaft (Leipzig, 1$75) .