FORTLAGE, KARL (18o6--1881), German philosopher, was born at Osnabruck. 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, and God is the absolute Ego, the empirical egos being his instruments.