The charge of impiety was a twofold one, partly for not believing in the gods the State believed in, partly for introducing new “demonic things.” This latter act was directly punishable according to Attic law. What his accusers alluded to was the _daimonion_ of Socrates. That they should have had any idea of what that was must be regarded as utterly out of the question, and whatever it may have been—and of this we shall have a word to say later—it had at any rate nothing whatever to do with atheism. As to the charge of not believing in the gods of the State, Plato makes the accuser prefer it in the form that Socrates did not believe in any gods at all, after which it becomes an easy matter for Socrates to show that it is directly incompatible with the charge of introducing new deities. As ground for his accusation the accuser states—in Plato, as before—that Socrates taught the same doctrine about the sun and moon as Anaxagoras. The whole of the passage in the _Apology_ in which the question of the denial of gods is dealt with—a short dialogue between Socrates and the accuser, quite in the Socratic manner—historically speaking, carries little conviction, and we therefore dare not take it for granted that the charge either of atheism or of false doctrine about the sun and moon was put forward in that form. But that something about this latter point was mentioned during the trial must be regarded as probable, when we consider that Xenophon, too, defends Socrates at some length against the charge of concerning himself with speculations on Nature. That he did not do so must be taken for certain, not only from the express evidence of Xenophon and Plato, but from the whole nature of the case. The accusation on this point was assuredly pure fabrication. There remains only what was no doubt also the main point, namely, the assertion of the pernicious influence of Socrates on the young, and the inference of irreligion to be drawn from it—an argument which it would be absurd to waste any words upon.