WorkJohann Gottlieb Fichte

Das System der Sittenlehre [The System of Ethics]

Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814) · Jena: Gabler, 1798

InferredFuller describes reading "the treatise which I read" by Fichte, which she characterizes as intended to be popular and stating that it must "compel (bezwingen) to conviction." Hudspeth identified this as Fichte's System der Sittenlehre nach den Principien der Wissenschaftslehre (1798).

AnalyzedReadMentioned

Documented 1836

Letters

Selected engagements, in chronological order.

Totals count documented engagements, once at the earliest witness. How we count →

Reprints, Memoirs passages, and repeat notes within a single manuscript are shown but never counted twice. Evidence for this work is selective, not exhaustive. Methodology →

AttestedConfirmed reading1836Evidence ↓

Confirmed reading

Passages where the evidence goes beyond allusion to indicate that Fuller had this work in hand — an explicit statement of reading, sustained excerpting or translation, or a specific reading episode recorded by those who knew her.

Dated
1836System der Sittenlehre nach den Principien der WissenschaftslehreAttested
“Fichte I could not understand at all; though the treatise which I read was one intended to be popular”
Letters of Margaret Fuller ed. Hudspeth · [ca. 14 February 1836]
MERGED 2026-10-11: absorbed duplicate witness(es) re324 (Mem-2 Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli (sections), Mem-2-02 l.5217-5222; tier A; same passage) — counted once here. Explicit 'the treatise which I read was one intended to be popular.' Identification note (Oct 12, 2026): the excerpt names no work. The title identification as System der Sittenlehre is provisional — the treatise Fuller describes was 'one intended to be popular,' which the systematic Sittenlehre is not; the identification awaits a check of the edition's note on this letter.

When Fuller engaged with this work

I. Childhood

II. Adolescence

III. Self-Directed

IV. Transcendentalist1record

V. New York

VI. Europe

✦. Memoirs (1852)

1810

1820

1832

1836

1844

1846

1850

1836—

Letter to James F. Clarke

p244

analyzed · read

“When I was in Cambridge, I got Fichte and Jacobi; I was much interrupted, but some time and earnest thought I devoted.”

Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. I. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983.

Inferred Fuller describes reading "the treatise which I read" by Fichte, which she characterizes as intended to be popular and stating that it must "compel (bezwingen) to conviction." Hudspeth identified this as Fichte's System der Sittenlehre nach den Principien der Wissenschaftslehre (1798).