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 FICINO FICTION 175 though it does not surpass the neighboring chains in elevation. It separates the affluents of the North and Black seas, the river Naab descending from it on the south, the Saale on the north, the Eger oft the east, and the Main on the west. It extends in length 30 m. N. E. from Baireuth to the Bohemian frontier, and its tvo loftiest summits are the Schneeberg (Snow mountain) and the Ochsenkopf (Ox Head), re- spectively 3,484 and 3,366 ft. high. The Fich- telgebirge possess a robust and laborious pop- ulation. The upper part of the mountains yields oats and wood in abundance, and the lower parts produce rye, barley, flax, pulse, and a little wheat ; but the chief industry of the inhabitants is in working the numerous mines of iron, vitriol, sulphur, lead, copper, and marble. The mountains are densely pop- ulated and traversed by good roads, and in the northwest by the Saxon-Bavarian railway. FICINO, Marsilio, a Platonic philosopher of the 15th century, born in Florence, Oct. 19, 1433, died at Oareggi, Oct. 1, 1499. He was the son of the first physician of Cosmo de' Me- dici, and was intended for his father's profes- sion. The Greek Gemistus Pletho, an enthu- siastic student of the philosophy of Plato, in- spired Cosmo with the design of naturalizing this philosophy in Italy. He selected Ficino, as a youth of great promise, to be instructed in the mysteries of Platonism, and to become the chief and preceptor of a new Platonic academy. He educated him in his palace, sur- rounded him with Greek masters, encouraged him to read the philosophers of antiquity, placed him when 30 years old at the head of the academy of Florence, and charged him to be the interpreter and propagator of the Platonic philosophy in the West. Ficino made numer- ous translations from Plato, lamblichus, Her- mes Trismegistus, whom he especially admired, and from most of the Alexandrian philoso- phers. He was appointed by Cosmo president of a literary society which assembled at his house, and had for its object to explain the doctrines of Plato. At the age of 40 he en- tered the church, and was appointed a canon in the cathedral of Florence. He became the disciple of all schools, and borrowed from all systems. He treated of the nature and im- mortality of the soul, the functions and dis- tinguishing characters of angels, and the being and attributes of God. His chief merit, how- ever, is as the translator and first western ad- mirer of Plato ; and in his partiality for this philosopher he is said to have endeavored to introduce fragments from his writings into the offices of the church. His works were collected and published at Basel (2 vols. folio, 1491). FKK, Adolf, a German physiologist, born in Cassel in 1829. He received his diploma of M. 1). at Zurich in 1852, and was professor of physiology there from 1856 till 1868, and has since filled the same chair at Wiirzburg. He has published Die medicinische Physilc (Brunswick, 1857), as a supplementary volume to Muller's 319 VOL. vii. 12 version of Pouillet's Elements de His other writings include Compendium der Physiologic des MenscJien mit Einschluss der EntwiclcclungsgescJiicJite (1860), Anatomie und Physiologie (1862), and Die Naturkrafte in ilirer WecJiselbeziehung (1869). FICQUELMONT, Karl Ludwig, count, an Aus- trian general and statesman, born at Dieuze, Lorraine, March 23, 1777, died in Venice, April 7, 1857. He was a son of Count Joseph, who, after emigrating from Lorraine to Aus- tria, died in 1799 from a wound received at the battle of Magnano. He entered the Austrian army, and in 1809 was colonel and chief of the staff of the grand duke Ferdinand of Este. In 1811 and 1812 he commanded three regiments of cavalry in Spain under Wellington. In 1813 he was promoted to the rank of major general, and in 1814 he brought about the ca- pitulation of Lyons. He was afterward sent on several important diplomatic missions. He was minister of foreign affairs during Metter- nich's temporary absence from Vienna in 1839, and in 1840 became a member of the cabinet. During the revolution of 1848 he was for a short time minister of foreign affairs, and then provisional prime minister, till May 4, when he retired on account of a hostile demonstration of the people, who looked upon him as a disci- ple of Metternich ; but he continued to exercise important influence in the affairs of the em- pire. He wrote several political pamphlets, some of which, as Lord Palmerston, England und der Continent (Vienna, 1852), and Zum Mnftigen Frieden (1856), attracted consider- able attention. Les pensees et reflexions mo- rales et politiques du comte de Ficquelmont ap- peared in Paris in 1859, with a biographical notice by M. de Barante. FICTION, in law, a supposition which is known not to be true, but which is assumed to be true in order that certain conclusions and inferences may be supported. Fictions have been made use of in all legal systems, but in none more abundantly than in that of England. The im- portant courts of queen's bench and exchequer acquired their general jurisdiction by means of the fiction of supposing in the one case a trespass and in the other a debt to the crown, which the defendant was not suffered to dis- pute. The old action of ejectment and the existing action of trover furnish cases of fictions which seern to us at this day utterly absurd, the supposed lease, entry, and ouster in the one case, and the supposed finding of the goods in dispute in the other, having no bearing on the merits of the case ; but they nevertheless have had their use in enabling the courts to give suitable remedy for a wrong which other- wise might have gone unredressed in some cases. With few exceptions, no fictions are now retained in the law except such as have a beneficial purpose ; and these are mostly fic- tions of relation, as where the title of an admin- istrator is supposed to have attached at the death of the deceased, in order to enable him