1. The full texts of both essays have been reprinted in Fichte, Johann Gottlieb, Schriften zur Revolution, ed. Willms, Bernard (Cologne, 1967)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. They are also available, with more thorough annotation, in Fichte, Johann Gottlieb, Werke 1791–1794, ed. Lauth, R. and Jacob, H., Gesamtausgabe der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, I, 1 (Stuttgart, 1964)Google Scholar. The Gesamtausgabe will be cited hereafter as GA. For a French translation of the Beitrag see Ficht, J. G., Considérations destinées à rectifier les jugements du public sur la Révolution française, ed. Richir, Marc (Paris, 1974).Google Scholar

2. This description of Fichte's youth is based on the correspondence in Fichte, Johann Gottlieb, Briefe 1775–1793, GA, III, 1 (1968)Google Scholar, and the unpublished writings in idem, Nachgelassene Schriften, 1780–1791, GA, II, 1 (1962)Google Scholar, and Nachgelassene Schriften 1791–1793, GA, II, 2 (1967)Google Scholar. Particularly revealing is “Zufällige Gedanken in einer schlaflosen Nacht” (24 July 1788), in GA, II, 1: 103–10. See also Léon, Xavier, Fichte et son temps, vol. 1 (Paris, 1924)Google Scholar, which is still the best biographical account, and La Vopa, Anthony J., Grace, Talent, and Merit: Poor Students, Clerical Careers, and Professional Ideology in Eighteenth-Century Germany (Cambridge, 1988), 351–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3. Eudämonia quoted in Buhr, Manfred, Revolution und Philosophie: Die ursprüngliche Philosophie Johann Gottlieb Fichtes und die Französische Revolution (Berlin, 1965), 64–65Google Scholar. The Beitrag “proclaimed bare liberty,” Martial Gueroult wrote in 1939, and the later writings added “equality” and “fraternity.” Gueroult, Martial, “Fichte et la Révolution Française,” in Barker, Ernest, ed., La révolution de 1789 et la pensée moderne (Paris, 1940), 171Google Scholar. See also León, , Fichte, 1: 180–203Google Scholar, which finds “the revolutionary spirit to the point of prophecy” in the Beitrag. But cf. Druet, Pierre-Philippe, Fichte (Paris, 1977), 56Google Scholar, where Fichte is said to have espoused “the ideology of '89” in 1792 and 1793.

East German historians have also tended to emphasize Fichte's affinities with Jacobinism, though from a different standpoint. See, for example, Träger, Claus, “Fichte als Agitator der Revolution: Über Aufklärung und Jakobinismus in Deutschland,” in Buhr, Manfred, ed., Wissen und Gewissen: Beiträge zum 200. Geburtstag Johann Gottlieb Fichtes, 1762–1814 (Berlin, 1962), 158–204Google Scholar, and Buhr, Revolution, 42–71. For Buhr Fichte's similarity with the Jacobins lay in his justification of “the use of revolutionary force” against counterrevolutionaries, even to the point of their physical destruction. Against the backdrop of the East Bloc purges of the 1950s, this was a chilling misinterpretation.

4. Also omitted from this discussion is Fichte's economic thought in the Beitrag. A full explanation of his egalitarianism would have to take into account the fact that he condemned corporate economic privileges and sanctioned private property. Particularly helpful on his political thought was Philonenko, Alexis, Théorie et praxis dans la pense's morale et politique de Kant et de Fichte en 1793 (1968: Paris, 1976)Google Scholar. Unlike most other students of Fichte's thought, Philonenko focused on the Beitrag as the base line for understanding Fichte's subsequent development of a “system.” His interpretation is also distinguished by its close textual reading. See also Reiss, Hans Siegbert, “Fichte als Politischer Denker,” Archiv für Rechts- und Sozialgeschichte 48 (1962)Google Scholar; Batscha, Zwi, Gesellschaft und Staat in der politischen Philosophie Fichtes (Frankfurt, 1970)Google Scholar; Willms, Bernard, Die totale Freiheit: Fichtes politische Philosophie (Cologne and Opladen, 1967)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The philosophical context of the Beitrag is also emphasized in Ferry, Luc, “Fichte,” in Furet, François and Ozouf, Mona, eds., A Critical Dictionary of the French Revolution (Cambridge, Mass, 1989), 933–37Google Scholar

5. Baker, Keith Michael, “‘Revolution,’” in The French Revolution and the Creation of Modern Political Culture, vol. 2: The Political Culture of the French Revolution, ed. Lucas, Colin (Oxford, 1988), 41–62Google Scholar; Reinhart Koselleck, “Historical Criteria of the Modern Concept of Revolution,” in idem, Futures Past: On the Semantics of Historical Time, trans. Keith Tribe (Cambridge, Mass., 1985). 39–54Google Scholar.

6. Burke, Edmund, Reflections on the Revolution in France, ed. O'Brien, Conor Cruise (New York, 1986), esp. 237 and 284Google Scholar. Gentz quoted in Vogel, Ursula, Konservative Kritik an der bürgerlichen Revolution: August Wilhelm Rehberg (Darmstadt and Neuwied, 1972), 65.Google Scholar

7. Fichte, Schriften, 57–58.

8. Ibid., 64–65. On the identification with Rousseau as uncorrupted outsider, see esp. Darnton, Robert, “The High Enlightenment and the Low-Life of Literature,” in idem, The Literary Underground of the Old Regime (Cambridge, Mass., 1982), 1–40Google Scholar, and Blum, Carol, Rousseau and the Republic of Virtue: The Language of Politics in the French Revolution (Ithaca, N.Y., 1986), 151–68.Google Scholar

9. The term “ideology” was introduced by the French philosopher Destutt de Tracy in 1796 to describe his “science of ideas.” “Ideologues” (its derivative) was given currency by Napoleon as a dismissive term for impractical intellectuals who presumed to mix in politics. On the early history of the concept of ideology, see Lichtheim, George, “The Concept of Ideology,” in idem, The Concept of Ideology and Other Essays (New York, 1967), 3–11Google Scholar; Barth, Hans, Truth and Ideology, trans. Lilge, Frederic (Berkeley, 1976), esp. 20–37Google Scholar; Dierse, Ulrich, “Ideologic,” in Brunner, Otto, Conze, Werner, and Koselleck, Reinhart, eds., Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe, 3 (Stuttgart, 1982): 131–69Google Scholar. For a particularly rich contribution to the conceptual history of “ideology,” see Ricoeur, Paul, Lectures on Ideology and Utopia, ed. Taylor, George H. (New York, 1986).Google Scholar

10. Burke, Reflections, 93–100, 183.

11. The meanings and political dimensions of “enthusiasm” in Anglo-American culture are surveyed in Lovejoy, David S., “‘Desperate Enthusiasm’: Early Signs of American Radicalism,” in Jacob, Margaret C. and Jacob, James, eds., The Origins of Anglo-American Radicalism (London, 1984), 231–42Google Scholar. On Burke's image of the gens de lettres as “enthusiasts,” see esp. Pocock, J.G.A., “The Political Economy of Burke's Analysis of the French Revolution,” in idem, Virtue, Commerce, and History: Essays on Political Thought and History, Chiefly in the Eighteenth Century (Cambridge, 1985), 193–212CrossRefGoogle Scholar. In Pocock's apt phrase, Burke saw the gens de lettres as “organized without being adequately patronized.” See also Freeman, Michael, Edmund Burke and the Critique of Political Radicalism (Chicago, 1980), esp. 74–79, 240–41.Google Scholar

12. Lessing, , “Über eine zeitige Aufgabe,” Gotthold Ephraim Lessings sämtliche Schriften, ed. Lachmann, Karl (1880–1924; reprint Berlin, 1968), 16: 293–302Google Scholar, is a particularly interesting meditation on the meaning of Schwärmerei. For examples of the polemical use of “enthusiasm” by German observers of the Revolution, see Weyergraf, Bernd, Der skeptische Bürger: Wielands Schriften zur französischen Revolution (Stuttgart, 1972), esp. 20, 40CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Berghahn, Klaus L., “Volkstümlichkeit ohne Volk? Kritische Überlegungen zu einem Kulturkonzept Schillers,” in Grimm, Reinhold and Hermand, Jost, eds., Popularität und Trivialität (Frankfurt, 1974): 65.Google Scholar

13. Rehberg, August Wilhelm, Untersuchungen über die französische Revolution, 2 vols. (Hanover, 1793), 2: 372–81Google Scholar. Vogel, konservative Kritik, is an insightful analysis of Rehberg's thought. On his agreements with and divergences from Burke, see esp. ibid., 98–106. Also useful is Epstein, Klaus, The Genesis of German Conservatism (Princeton, 1966), 547–94.Google Scholar

14. Fichte, Schriften, 39, 66–68.

15. There is a large and growing literature on Kant's moral theory, but Sullivan, Roger J., Immanuel Kant's Moral Theory (Cambridge, 1989)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, is distinguished by its lucidity as well as its thoroughness. A brief and accessible introduction is Charles Taylor, “Kant's Theory of Freedom,” in idem, Philosophy and the Human Sciences: Philosophical Papers, 2 (Cambridge, 1985): 318–37.

For want of space, this paper will not discuss the ways in which Fichte's early application of Kant's moral theory diverged from Kant's own application. See esp. “Beanwortung der Frage: Was ist Aufklärung?” and “Über den Gemeinspruch: ‘Das mag in der Theorie richtig sein, taugt aber nicht für die Praxis,’” in Kant's Political Writings, ed. Reiss, Hans (Cambridge, 1970), 54–92Google Scholar. The best treatment of the subject is still Philonenko. Théorie et praxis.

16. Fichte to Kant, , 2 04., 1793, in GA, III, 1: 389–90.Google Scholar

17. Fichte, Schriften, 42–59,

18. Ibid., 48–49.

19. Ibid., 42–46.

20. See Ricoeur, Lectures, esp. 1–18, 159–80, 216–31, and the discussion of Fichte in Habermas, Jürgen, Knowledge and Human Interests, trans. Shapiro, Jeremy J. (Boston, 1972), esp. 191–213Google Scholar. On the conceptual paradox see also Dierse, “Ideologie” 166–67; Ludz, Peter Christian, Ideologiebegriff und marxistische Theorie: Ansötze zu einer immanenten Kritik (Opladen, 1976), esp. xiii–7, 39–49, 123–34.Google Scholar

21. Fichte, Schriften, 45.

22. Ibid., 34.

23. Lessing, , “Die Erziehung des Menschengeschlechts,” Gesammelte Wake, ed. Rilla, Paul, 8 (Berlin, 1956): 590–615Google Scholar. On Lessing's historiosophy see esp. Timm, Hermann, Gott und die Freiheit: Studien zur Religionsphilosophie der Goethezeit, vol. 1: Die Spinozarenaissance (Frankfurt, 1974).Google Scholar

24. The metaphors were not limited to German Protestantism; see the discussion of German and English early Romanticism in Abrams, M. H., Natural Supernaturalism: Tradition and Revolution in Romantic Literature (New York, 1971)Google Scholar. My interpretation of Fichte's thought is indebted to Abrams's concept of “secularization” as “the assimilation and reinterpretation of religious ideas, as constitutive elements in a world view founded on secular premises.” But cf. Yack, Bernard, The Longing for Total Revolution: Philosophical Sources of Social Discontent from Rousseau to Marx and Nietzsche (Princeton, 1986), 11–18Google Scholar. Yack rightly criticizes the view that modern radicalism is a secularized form of religious fanaticism, on the grounds that it substitutes analogy for explanation; but he ignores Abrams's quite different use of the concept of secularization.

25. On pedagogy and natural entelechy see Vopa, La, Grace, Talent, and Merit, esp. 165–96Google Scholar. The vast German literature on “enlightenment” is surveyed in Schneiders, Werner, Die wahre Aufklärung: Zum Selbstverständnis der deutschen Aufklärung (Freiburg and Munich, 1974)Google Scholar. For a sampling of the literature see Batscha, Zwi, ed., Aufklärung und Gedankenfreiheit: Fünfzehn Anregungen, aus der Geschichte zu lernen (Frankfurt, 1977).Google Scholar

26. Fichte, Schriften, 11–13, 35–39.

27. This tradition of “psycho-historical parallelism” is emphasized in Abrams, Natural Supernaturalism. On “conversion” in German Lutheran Pietism, see Vopa, La, Grace, Talent, and Merit, 137–64.Google Scholar

28. Fichte, Schriften, 68–74; Druet, Fichte, 61.

29. See, for example, Starobinski, Jean, “La Chaire, la tribune, le Barreau,” in Nora, Pierre, ed., Les Lieux de Mémoire, vol. 2: La Nation (Paris, 1986): 449–58Google Scholar; Maza, Sara, “Le tribunal de la nation: les mémoires judiciaires et l'opinion publique à la fin de l'Ancien Régime,” Annales 42 (1987): 73–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On German rhetorical traditions see Weithase, Irmgard, Zur Geschichte der gesprochenen deutschen Sprache 2 vols. (Tübingen, 1961).Google Scholar

30. See Vopa, La, Grace, Talent, and Merit, 335–41.Google Scholar

31. Fichte, , “Zeruf an die Bewohner der preussischen Staaten,” in GA, II, 2Google Scholar. See also GA, III, 1: 120, 130–31, 150. Cf. Druet, Fichte, 55–56, which suggests that the Parisian popular uprising of 10 Aug. 1792 induced Fichte to abandon his position in the “Zeruf” for the egalitarian vision of the Zurückforderung and the Beitrag. I find this explanation unnecessary and without documentary justification.

32. See, for example, Kant, Immanuel, Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals, trans. Abbott, T. K. (1785: Buffalo, 1987), 26–31Google Scholar. These aspects of Kant's moral theory are emphasized in Sullivan, Immanuel Kant's Moral Theory, 4–6, 131–37. See also the discussion of Kant's concept of “interest” in Orth, Ernst Wolfgang, “Interesse,” Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe, 3: 333–35.Google Scholar

33. See Fichte's early sermon drafts, published in GA, II, 1: 53–98. Preul, Reiner, Reflexion und Gefühl: Die Theologie Fichtes in seiner vorkantischen Zeit (Berlin, 1969)Google Scholar, is an insightful analysis of Fichte's early religious thought.

34. Fichte, Schriften, 34–35, 62–63. Fichte's egalitarian rhetoric may have been unique in its philosophical ambitions, but he was not alone in developing such a rhetoric. For other examples see Jäger, Hans-Wolf, Politische Kategorien in Poetik und Rhetorik der zweiten Hälfte des 18. Jahrhunderts (Stuttgart, 1970)Google Scholar, and Stephan, Inge, Literarischer Jakobinismus in Deutschland (1789–1806) (Stuttgart, 1976)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For the more typical perspective, see the analysis of Schiller's view of “popularity” in Berghahn, “Volkstümlichkeit.”

35. Fichte, Schriften, 40–47.

36. Ibid., 37.

37. Ibid., 62.

38. Fichte to Kant (20 Sept. 1793), in GA, III, 1: 431–32; Fichte to Theodor von Schön (20 Sept. 1793), ibid., 433–35

39. Herder, Johann Gottfried, “Haben wir noch das Publikum und Vaterland der Alten?” in Herders Werke in fünf Bänden, 4 (Berlin and Weimar, 1978): 130–33.Google Scholar

40. Fichte, Schriften, 11, 39.

41. Ibid., 212.

42. GA, III, 1: 431–32.

43. Fichte, Schriften, 43.

44. Ibid., 118.

45. Ibid., 213.

46. See esp. Habermas, Jürgen, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society, trans. Burger, Thomas (1962: Cambridge, Mass., 1989), esp. 89–117, 159–75Google Scholar, and Eagleton, Terry, The Function of Criticism: From “The Spectator” to Post-Structuralism (London, 1984), 9–27Google Scholar. Also relevant are Hölscher, Lucian, “Öffentlichkeit,” in Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe, 4: 433–53Google Scholar; Baker, Keith Michael, “Politics and Public Opinion Under the Old Regime: Some Reflections,” in Censer, Jack R. and Popkin, Jeremy D., eds., Press and Politics in Pre-Revolutionary France (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1987), 204–46Google Scholar, and Ozouf, Mona, “L'opinion publique,” in Baker, Keith Michael, ed., The French Revolution and the Creation of Modern Political Culture, vol. 1: The Political Culture of the Old Regime (Oxford, 1987): 419–34.Google Scholar

47. Burke, Reflections, 91, 122. “A certain quantum of power,” Burke observed, “must always exist in the community, in some hands, and under some appellation.” Ibid., 248.

48. The classic statement of these issues is Koselleck, Reinhart, Critique and Crisis: Enlightenment and the Pathogenesis of Modern Society (1959: Cambridge, Mass., 1988).Google Scholar

49. Philonenko, Théorie et praxis, 116. Philonenko blames the failure of the Beitrag on Fichte's radically individualistic and antiempirical moral theory, which prevented him from using Rousseau's theory of the General Will to construct a “positive principle” for political community.

50. Fichte, Schriften, 76–80.

51. Ricoeur, Ideology and Utopia, 1–18, 254–66.

52. Fichte, Schriften, 113, 118. Other Kantians had other ways out of the same dilemma. Johann Benjamin Erhard, for example, held out the theoretical possibility that a popular “insurrection” could achieve a “moral” revolution, but only if it embodied the “unanimity” that “proceed[ed] from universally valid principles.” Erhard, Johann Benjamin, Über das Recht des Volks zu einer Revolution, und andere Schriften, ed. Haasis, Hellmut G. (1795: Munich, 1970), 59, 90–97.Google Scholar

53. Lessing, “Über eine jetzige Aufgabe,” 299–300.