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 German
philosopher and physicist, founder of psychophysics, educated at Dresden
and Leipzig. He became professor of physics at Leipzig in 1834 but was
forced by ill health to leave in 1839. Thereafter he devoted himself
largely to the study of the relationship between body and mind, although
under the name “Dr. Mises” he also wrote humorous satire. In philosophy
he was an animist, maintaining that life is manifest in all objects
of the universe. His greatest achievement was in the investigation of
exact relationships in psychology and aesthetics. He formulated the
rule known as Fechner's, or Weber's, law, that, within limits, the intensity
of a sensation increases as the logarithm of the stimulus. Two of Fechner's
most important works were Zendavesta (1851) and Elementen
der Psychophysik (1860).
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