FEBVRE. 500 FECHTER. the principal cities of Europe. The following year he was sent to the United States to make a study of the American stage. His published works in- clude: Au. bord de la seem l 1889) . /-• jcmmald'un (1896) ; and Lu clef des champs ( 1899) . FECAMP, fa'kaN' (OF. Fescamp, Lat. Fis- cunnum : derived by popular etymology from Lat. Ficus Campus, Fig Plain, on account of a legend that a fig-tree, in which some of the precious blood of Christ had been placed by Joseph of Arimathsea, was washed ashore there). A manu- facturing town and seaport in the Department of Seine-Inferieure, France, situated in a narrow valley, flanked on either side by steep cliffs, at the mouth of a stream of the same name, on the English Channel, 23 miles northeast of Havre l Map : France, G 2 ) . Its principal buildings are the abbey church of the Benedictines, in the early Pointed "style of the period from the eleventh to the sixteenth century : the Church of Saint Etienne. a museum, a library, and a hospital. The harbor is frequented by English colliers and by Baltic timber-ships and fishing- vessels. Fecamp has cotton-mills, oil-mills, distilleries, and va- rious other industrial establishments. Population of the commune, in 1901, 15,381. The town dates from a convent founded in 004, which was de- -t roved in 8-1 1 by the Northmen. In 998 Richard I.. Duke of Normandy, rebuilt it as a, Benedictine abbey. FECHNER, feK'ner, Gustav Theodor (1801- 87). A German physicist and philosopher, the founder of modern psychology and psychophysics. He was born in the village of Gross-Sarehen, near Muskau, in Lower Lusatia. After completing his school education at the Kreuzschule, in Dresden. Fechner in 1817 entered the University of Leip- zig as a student of medicine. Disappointed at the unscientific character of his medical teaching, and strongly influenced by Oken's Naturphilo- sophie and 'Biot's Physics, he soon turned his attention to the study of theoretical and experi- mental physics, and after Gilbert's death, in 1824, lectured as a substitute for the professor. From this date till 1845 he made valuable contri- butions to the doctrine of electricity, his well- known Massbesti/mmungen iiber die galvanisehe Kette being issued in a single volume in 1831. In 1833 he was appointed associate professor, and in 1834 full professor of pi ysics in the Univer- i of Leipzig. In 1838-40 he was engaged upon investigations in the sphere of physiolog- ical optics. Meantime he had, under the pseu- donym of Dr. Mises, published a long series of humorous and satirical essays, of which we may ntipn the /Von/' that the Moon is 1/'" o/ Iodine < 1821 ) . a sharp arraignmenl of the existing state of materia medica, and the Comparative .1 natomy of thi ingels (1825), a work of delicate humor, containing in germ many philosophical ideas ere later put forward with serious inten- tion. In 1839 Fechner published a notable piece - criticism, and in 1841, as Dr Hisi volume of lyric poetry. The years 1840 13 were i. for the mosl part, in the sicl< room Tier had broken down nervously, and was threat l both « ith blindness and with insanity. His I en H -el in. was rapid and com- pi, ov turned his though! toward phi- 1 , ied in 18 16 an ethical treatise, i . ■ ■ h U Out. This was folh m d in isis by tin curious mil mosl suggestive work, Nanna, oder iiber das Seelenleben der P/lanzen, in which mentality, of however low an order, is ascribed to the plant world, and this in turn by the Zend-Avesta, oder iiber die Dinyi des II an- nuls inn! des Je?iseits (1851), in which Fechner set forth a comprehensive system of metaphysics from the standpoint of natural science. Here we find the fundamental ideas of what was later to be elaborated as psychophysics. Finally, the work Ueber die physikalische und philosophische Atomenlehre (185o) marks Fechner's definitive rupture with the speculative nature-philosophy of Schelling and his school. The remaining years of Fechner's life (1860-87) were devoted principally to the study of psychology and aes- thetics. In 1860 appeared the epoch making Elemente der Psychophysik (reprinted, 1889). We have seen that as early as 1838 Fechner was busied with psychophysical problems, and the general question of the relation of mind to body- had long been before his mind. The new- science called forth lively discussion, and Fechner's personal views evoked much oppo- sition. In 1877 he published the In Sachen der Psychophysik, a reply to objections by Helni- holtz, Mach, Brentano, and others, and in 1882 the Revision der Hauptpunkte der Psychophysik, a reply to G. E. Midler's Grundlegting der Psy- chophysik (1878). In 1871 appeared Zur experi- mentalen .'Esthetik, and in 1876 the profound and comprehensive work, Torschule der JEsthetik. In 1879 came Die Tagesansicht gegeniiber der Nachtansicht, a summary of the author's reli- gious and metaphysical beliefs. Fechner's last piece of published work was, characteristically enough, an article on Weber's law (q.v.), print- ed in YVundt's Philosophische Studien (Leipzig, 1887). He died in Leipzig. November IS, 1887. An important mathematical treatise, the Col- lektivmasslehre, was issued posthumously, under the editorship of G. F. Lipps (1897). Fechner's general philosophy has not as yet received the attention that it deserves. His sesthetic work, on the other hand, has borne rich fruit. Bui his enduring fame will, of course, rest, upon the Psychophysik. In this work he laid, once and for all. the foundation- of an exact psychology. But he did more. He worked out a series of psychophysical meas urement methods (see Psychophysics), which are those still employed in our psycholog ieal laboratories. He carried out extended re searches, which arc not only models of scien- tific patience and caution, but permanenl tributions to the literature of psychology. He levied tax upon all departments of scien inquiry (see Psychology, Experimental) for facts and laws which might hear upon the chophysical relation, bringing order and con- sistency into the chaos of separate observations. i onsult: Kuntze, Gustav Theodor Fechner; .in deutsches Oelehrtenleben (Leipzig, 1892) Lasswitz. Gustav Theodor Fechner (Stuttgart, 1896); and for a bibliography of Fechn works, Fechner, Elemente der Psychophysik (2d ed., I eipzig, 1889). FECHTER. fek'ter, Charles vLBERI (1824 79). noted actor. He was born probably in London (though accounts from another sot gay Paris), bis father being of German and Ilia mother of Italian descent. He »;i- educated in France, and in is in appeared in private thi
