ABSTRACT
The economic results of Lutheranism were, therefore, confined to the strengthening of the national government, and, as an indirect consequence, of "Mercantilism," and to the education of a humble and patient working class, fitted to the needs of the manorial estate, which still at the beginning of the nineteenth century furnished the sweeping advance of industrialism and capitalism with a docile labour supply. Social reorganisations of any importance were only desired by the small Anabaptist groups, but for that very reason, these were cruelly extirpated by the representatives of the hitherto existing Christian society. The influence of Protestantism on the social structure and the formation of classes is therefore, so far as it exists at all, mainly indirect and unconscious. The possibility of the change was inherent in Protestantism; but in order that it might come to pass, modern completely self-directing science must first be born.
