BENEKE, ba'n6-ke, Friedrich Eduard, German philosopher and psychologist: b. Ber lin, 17 Feb. 1798; disappeared 1 March 1854; found drowned in a canal at Charlottenburg, 4 June 1856. After serving as a volunteer in the campaign of 1815, he studied theology and philosophy at Halle and Berlin, giving special attention to the English philosophers. In 1820 he lectured in the University of Berlin as a private but the continuance of his lee tures was forbidden by the minister Altenstein, in 1822, on account of his departure from the philosophical principles of Hegel, He then taught for a few years in Gottingen, but, re turning to Berlin in 1827, received permission to lecture in the university, in which he was elected extraordinary professor of philosophy after Hegel's death, in 1832. The starting point of his system is that philosophy must be founded upon a strict and careful examination of the phenomena of consciousness. He thus adopts, in mental philosophy, the method observed by Bacon in the natural sciences, and his system is described as an empirical psychology. He
was opposed to the speculative system of Hegel and held that a true psychology, the basis of all knowledge, must be formulated along the methods of exact physical science, and he be lieved the genetic method to be superior to all others. He was a voluminous writer and among his chief works
als Grundlage alles Wissens, in ihren Haupt ziigen dargelegt) (1820) ; (Neue Grundlegungcn zur Metaphysik' (1822) ;
Psy chologie, oder Seelenlehre in der Anwendung out das Leben' (1850)