Page:Masterpieces of German literature volume 10.djvu/559

 aroused against any man only by his own acts and their publicity. But how can anything done by Peter excite the hatred and contempt of Paul? If any one were to tell us: "The workingmen are going to get up a social revolution," how could that remark arouse hatred and contempt of the bourgeoisie? The passage in question, then, shows itself to have been one that makes no sense, either in point of grammar or in point of logic. It is not only untrue with a threefold untruth, but it is contradictory and meaningless. At least it is quite unintelligible to me.

I have as great difficulty in understanding the public prosecutor's language as he has in understanding mine. The Greeks were in the habit of calling any one barbaros (a barbarian) who did not understand the current speech. So the public prosecutor and I are both barbarians, the one to the other.

But this passage in the indictment which I have been analyzing brings up a third point at which I am alleged to have been guilty of inciting to hatred and contempt of the bourgeoisie. This is introduced with the word "particularly." The exposition and the allusions above spoken of are alleged to have incited to hatred and contempt, "particularly because the address contains a direct appeal to make the mastery of the working classes over the other classes of society the end of their endeavors, to be pursued with the most ardent and consuming passion." Suppose that such were the case; an exhortation addressed to a given class of society to pursue the vain ambition of a mastery over the other classes would be worthy of all reprobation, but it would still be legally permissible unless it urged to criminal acts. Every class in society is at liberty to strive for the control of the State, so long as it does not seek to realize its end by unlawful means. No political purpose is punishable, the means employed alone are. Now, the character of this prosecution, as a prosecution directed against a political bias, appears plainly and should be manifest to every one in every line of the indictment, in that it constantly charges incitement to the