ABSTRACT
Political changes in Prussia, including the particularly unfavourable political situation in the eighties, brought Immanuel Kant into a remarkable conflict with the Administration towards the end of his academic career. Frederick the Great, the king of the Enlightenment, a friend of tolerance, who had secured for his subjects freedom of creed and conscience for all Christian denominations, died on the 17th August 1786. He was succeeded by his nephew, Frederick William II, who, during the first years of his reign, was well disposed towards Kant and gave repeated proof of his especial esteem for him. Enemy of the Church, enemy of the State and supporter of the 'French freedom fraud' were taken as one and the same thing and soon became a general accusation against all free thinkers. Thus the leaders of reaction in Prussia looked upon all those who, like Kant, sympathized with the French Revolution, as 'revolutionaries' and, consequently, as 'extremely dangerous and evil-disposed persons'.
