The main source of enlightened reform was to be the crown, but many well-intentioned people of means and education also began to apply a new standard of conduct in their dealings with their fellow man. This change in attitude was apparent in the decline of religious resentments and discriminations. Never before had the relationship between Roman Catholics and Protestants among the well-to-do classes of central Europe been as free of rancour as on the eve of the French Revolution. It was at this time also that Jews first began to emerge from the isolation to which a deep-seated intolerance had consigned them. The idea of assimilation held out to them the prospect of escape from the ghetto on the condition that they identify themselves in thought, speech, and attitude with the Christian society in which they lived. That prospect was to attract the Jewish minority in Germany more and more during the next 150 years. Religious toleration, however, was not the only article of faith of the Enlightenment. Its vision of a happier future included the reformation of education, the abolition of poverty, the alleviation of sickness, and the elimination of injustice. Men of goodwill established schools, founded orphanages, built hospitals, improved farming methods, modernized industrial techniques, and tried to raise the standard of living of the masses. While the hopes of the enlightened reformers of the 18th century far outstripped their accomplishments, the practical results of their efforts should not be underestimated.

According to the doctrines of benevolent despotism, however, the chief instrumentality for the improvement of society was not private philanthropy but government action. The state had the primary responsibility for preparing the way for the golden age that, in the opinion of many intellectuals, awaited humankind. The extent to which official policy conformed to rationalist theory depended, in central Europe as elsewhere, on the personality and ability of the ruler. Both of the leading powers of the Holy Roman Empire followed the teachings of benevolent despotism but with substantially different results. The emperor Joseph II, a well-meaning though doctrinaire reformer, attempted to initiate a revolution from above against the opposition of powerful forces that continued to cling to tradition. In the course of a single decade he tried to centralize the government of his far-flung domains, reduce the influence of the church, introduce religious toleration, and ease the burden of serfdom. His uncompromising program of innovation, however, alienated the landed aristocracy, whose support was essential for the effective operation of the government. The emperor encountered mounting unrest, which did not end until his death in 1790, and the subsequent abandonment of most of the reforms that he had promulgated. Frederick the Great was more successful as an enlightened autocrat, but only because he was more cautious. His reorganization of the government was not as drastic, his belief in religious toleration remained less profound, and his assistance to the peasants did not go beyond a prohibition against the absorption of their holdings by the nobility. He invited settlers to cultivate reclaimed lands, and he encouraged entrepreneurs to increase the industrial capacity of Prussia. Among his most important accomplishments, although it was not completed until after his death, was the Prussian Civil Code, which defined the principles and practices of an absolute government and a corporative society. Yet Frederick was also convinced that the Prussian landed noblemen, the Junkers, were the backbone of the state, and he continued accordingly to uphold the alliance between crown and aristocracy on which his kingdom had been built.

The achievements of benevolent despotism among the minor states of the Holy Roman Empire varied considerably. Some princes employed their inherited authority in a serious effort to improve the lot of their subjects. Charles Frederick of Baden, for example, devoted himself to the improvement of education in his margravate, and he even abolished serfdom, although manorial obligations remained. Charles Augustus of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach was a hardworking administrator of his small Thuringian principality, whose capital, Weimar, he transformed into the cultural center of Germany. Charles Eugene of Württemberg, on the other hand, led a life of profligacy and licentiousness in defiance of protests by the estates of the duchy. Frederick II of Hesse-Kassel was another princely prodigal whose love of pleasure impoverished his subjects and forced his soldiers into mercenary service for England. The record of enlightened autocracy in central Europe was as uneven as in western Europe. Yet the ideas of the Enlightenment even at their best were unable to transform the basis of political life in the Holy Roman Empire. They could palliate, reform, and improve, but they could not alter a system of particularistic sovereignty and absolutistic authority resting on a hierarchical structure of society. They could not become an instrument of national consolidation or representative government. Only some great creative disruption of existing civic institutions could break through the crust of habit and tradition sanctified by history. Germany lacked the internal preconditions for a process of political reconstruction. The galvanizing forces of rejuvenation and regeneration were to come from the outside.