But, if such is found to be the case, then, as I have already explained, it has nothing to do with the penal code.

I have permitted myself to go exhaustively into an exposition of this, my first ground of defense, because, for the sake of the country itself and the dignity and liberty of science, and for the sake of establishing once for all a precedent which shall bar out all similar endeavors of the public prosecutor in the future, it is incumbent on me to adjure you to acquit me under Article 20 of the Constitution.

But it is not that recourse to this article is necessary to protect my person from the penalty of the law.

For, even were it held that the present case comes within the competence of the penal code, the law appealed to has in no wise been violated, and the paragraph cited by the public prosecutor has no application.

Even this one exception, alone would suffice to set the indictment aside; viz., that no objection is taken to any given passage in which the specified offense is alleged to occur; so that the prosecution proceeds wholely on an allegation of bias, and in the baldest manner.  The indictment runs against a bias; that is all.  But a bias is not actionable.

But I am not to be permitted to dispose of my defense in so easy a manner.  The accusation of having endeavored to incite the poor to hatred of the rich is an accusation of such a kind that, apart from all question of punishment, it is likely to injure any citizen’s name and fame.  This accusation is of such character that, even if it is formally disproven on legal ground, it may still leave the accused an object of suspicion.  You will, accordingly, Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Court, take it simply as evidence of the respect I bear you when I now go on to clear my honor in your sight, with the same solicitude as that with which I have defended my freedom.  To this end it is necessary for me to present the grounds of fact, as painstakingly as I have presented the grounds of law, on which this accusation is to be quashed, and you will, therefore, I am sure, hear me with the same forbearance if this second part of my defense turns out to be but little briefer than the first.

I am accused of having violated Section 100 of the penal code.  This section reads as follows:  “Any person who endangers or jeopardizes the public peace by publicly inciting the subjects of the State to hatred or to contempt of one another, is liable to punishment by a fine of not less than 20 and not more than 200 thalers, or by imprisonment of not less than one month and not more than two years.”

This section of the law specifies three different conditions, which must be found to concur if it is to be applicable.

I. There must be incitement to hatred or to contempt;

II.  This incitement must be directed to the detriment of given classes of the subjects of the State, and I am accordingly accused by the public prosecutor of having incited the class of the unpropertied against the class of the propertied;