ABSTRACT
The Electorate of Brandenburg or the Kingdom of Prussia emerged as a new political and military force. This was mainly due to a unique agreement between the Elector and the nobility, which gave absolute power to the prince and increased the power of the nobility over the peasants. All peasants were treated as serfs unless proved otherwise, and large-scale demesne agriculture, partly for export, became the nobility's main source of income. A pietist form of Protestantism, which emphasized the equality of all before God, was the main consolation of the merchants and artisans. The social philosophy of Immanuel Kant, who was a professor of Philosophy at the University of Konigsberg, gave a supremely clear and systematic expression to liberalism, but it was set in a philosophical framework which accommodated a complete violation of the principles of liberalism in the actual politics of the state.
