with
which the system of absolute truth, as he holds, has come into being. He
thus becomes an adherent of the Science of Knowledge, whose deductive
results he finds inductively confirmed by psychological experience.
Psychology is the empirical test for the metaphysical calculus of the
Science of Knowledge. In regard to the absolute Fortlage is in agreement
with Krause, the younger Fichte, Ulrici, etc., and calls his standpoint
_transcendent pantheism_. According to this all that is good, exalted, and
valuable in the world is divine in its nature; the human reason is of
the same essence as the divine reason (there can be nothing higher than
reason); the Godhead is the absolute ego of Fichte, which employs the
empirical egos as organs, which thinks and wills in individuals, in so
far as they think the truth and will the good, but at the same time as
universal subject goes beyond them. If, after the example of Hegel, we give
up transcendent pantheism in favor of immanence, two unphilosophical modes
of representing the absolute at once result--on the one hand, materialism;
on the other, popular, unphilosophical theism. If the Fichtean Science
of Knowledge could be separated from its difficult method, which it is
impossible ever to make comprehensible to the unphilosophical mind, it
would be called to take the place of religion.[1]

[Footnote 1: Among Fortlage's posthumous manuscripts was one on the
Philosophy of Religion, on which Eucken published an essay in the
_Zeitschrift fuer Philosophie_, vol. lxxxii. 1883, p. 180 _seq_. after
Lipsius had given a single chapter from it--"The Ideal of Morality
according to Christianity"--in his _Jahrbuecher fuer protestantische
Theologie_ (vol. ix. pp. 1-45). The journals _Im Neuen Reich_, 1881, No.
24, and _Die Gegenwart_, 1882, No. 34, contained warmly written notices of
Fortlage by J. Volkelt. Leopold Schmid (in Giessen, died 1869) gives a
favorable and skillfully composed outline of Fortlage's system in his
_Grundzuege der Einleitung in die Philosophie mit einer Beleuchtung der
von K. Ph. Fischer, Sengler, und Fortlage ermoeglichten Philosophie der
That_, 1860, pp. 226-357. Cf. also Moritz Brasch, _K. Fortlage, Ein
philosophisches Charakterbild_, in _Unsere Zeit_, 1883, Heft II,
pp. 730-756, incorporated in the same author's _Philosophie der
Gegenwart_, 1888.]

%2. Realism: Herbart.%

Johann Friedrich Herbart was scientifically the most important among the
philosophers of the