In 1772, a Cabinet order prescribes that theological books for which privileges are demanded must be examined and, if necessary, revised by a consistorial commission comprised of certain Protestant ecclesiastics. The penalties imposed upon an ecclesiastic for printing any volume for which special permission had not been secured were particularly severe. The persecution of Christian Wolff, who held for a series of years a professorship in Halle, is cited as a characteristic example of Protestant censorship and intolerance. The philosophic doctrines taught by the professor excited the indignation of Frederick II and in 1773, under a Cabinet order, Wolff was deprived of his post and was ordered to leave Prussian territory within forty-eight hours. Other instructors who had accepted the so-called Wolffian philosophy, such as Gabriel Fischer of Königsberg, were in like manner deprived of their offices and banished from the country. The various operations of royal censorship under the great Elector and his several successors, up to and including Frederick the Great, present examples of tyrannical inconsistency, inconsequence, unreasonableness, ignorance, and narrowness which have not been surpassed, and have possibly hardly been equalled, under any of the regulations of the Roman Index. Frederick the Great developed the political censorship of Prussia into a system the influence of which persists under the German Empire of to-day. His censorship was directed more particularly against literature affecting the interests of the State, but it included the full control of theological utterances. After the occupation of Silesia, an order was issued directing the Bishop of Breslau to submit for the approval of the royal censors, before publication, all edicts or utterances on the part of the Catholic Church. In 1775, the King prohibited the publication in his dominions of the Bull of Clement XIV. In 1784, Frederick the Great issued an edict prohibiting under serious penalties the acceptance by any of his subjects of Catholic doctrines. This edict being contrary to the conventions in force, he was obliged, however, to withdraw it. In 1792, Frederick William issues an order for the systematising of the censorship of the kingdom. It is directed that all printing-offices, publishing concerns, and bookshops be placed under the strictest supervision, that no work shall come into print until it has secured the approval of the royal censors. The penalties included, in addition to fines, the cancellation of the editions, and in case of a persistent disobedience, the banishment of the delinquent. The university professors are also brought under close supervision for their utterances in lectures. In 1794, in which year censorship in England was practically abandoned, the censorship system in Prussia under Frederick William II. became more severe and exacting than ever before.