Consequently not every case of such incitement is held to be punishable, but only those cases in which the peace of the streets is in danger of being disturbed.  In other words the penalty follows only when the incitement to hatred and contempt attains such a pitch as to become dangerous, that is to say, liable to result in overt unlawful acts.  Section 100 is accordingly not to be taken to say that any person who incites to hatred and contempt endangers the public peace and is therefore subject to punishment.  Such an interpretation would be wholly fallacious, on juridical as well as on grammatical grounds.  Its meaning is that any person who puts the public peace in jeopardy through inciting to hatred and contempt—­that is to say in case the incitement is of such a nature that it necessarily carries danger to the public peace—­such a person is subject to the penalties of this law.  In making use of the term “endanger,” therefore, the law defines the crime of incitement to this effect, that it must be incitement of such a kind that it at least may lead to overt action—­to the endangering of the peace of the streets—­otherwise it is not punishable.

To show how far my action falls short of this third criterion, how little the alleged instigation is of the kind which might, even conceivably, lead to tangible action in the way of endangering the political peace, the peace of the public highways—­to this end let me simply point out that in this address I am occupied with a discussion of periods of historical development of secular duration, and at the close I make the explicit statement that in the advance of a historical dawning one or two decades count but as a single hour in the revolution of a natural day.

So that we have here to do with an indictment which meets the requirements of the law at not a single point; whereas in order to an adequate charge, the several counts should concur, should combine and bear one another out.

It has frequently happened that indictments have been made in which some one count has not been well taken.  But an indictment of which not even a single count proves to come within the contemplation of the law,—­such an indictment deserves a special, and in every sense of the word a peculiar, place on honor in the temple of jurisprudence.

However, audiatur et altera pars.[58] Let us take one last look at the motivation which the indictment offers.  In so doing it is possible that we shall find that in what I have been saying I have, by some highly ingenious artifice of exposition, succeeded in concealing the legally offensive features of my action; or on the other hand it may turn out that the totally nugatory character of this indictment will by this means be brought out in even more startling fashion than has yet appeared.