Page:Masterpieces of German literature volume 10.djvu/518

 not quite two years since I published a work in which, I believe, I have succeeded in contributing something to the advancement of your own science, Gentlemen,—the science on which the administration of justice is based. The work of which I speak is my "System of Acquired Rights." (System der erworbenen Rechte.) In this work I take occasion to say (Vol. I., p. 238): " Science, whose first duty is the most searching inquiry and concise thinking, can on this account in no way deprive itself of the right to formulate its conceptions with all the definiteness and concision which the clearness of these conceptions itself requires." And proceeding on this ground I go on, in the further discussion, to show that the agrarian legislation of Prussia subsequent to 1850 is nothing else—to quote my own words literally—than a robbery of the poor for the benefit of the wealthy landed aristocracy, illegal and perpetrated in violation of the perpetrators' own sense of equity.

How easy would it not have been, if the expressions had occurred elsewhere than in a scientific treatise, to find that they embodied overt contempt of the institutions of the State, and incitement to hatred and disregard of the regulations of the government. But they occurred in a scientific treatise—they were the outcome of a painstaking scientific inquiry,—therefore they passed without indictment.

But that was two years ago.

In return for the accusation which has been brought against me, I, in my turn, retort with the accusation that my accusers have this day brought upon Prussia the disgrace that now for the first time since the State came into existence scientific teaching is prosecuted before a criminal court. For what can the public prosecutor say to my accusation, since he concedes the substance of my claims, since he is compelled to acknowledge that science and its teaching is free, and therefore free from all penal restraint? Will he contend, perhaps, that I do not represent science? Or will he, possibly, deny that the work with which this indictment is concerned is a scientific work?