Introduction.

that the stars and planets were gods, and instead claimed that the former were suns and the latter inhabited worlds; and Socrates drank the cup of poison The "cup of poison" refers to the hemlock Socrates was forced to drink after being sentenced to death by the Athenian state. because he dared to spread the teaching of a single God *. It cannot be denied that the magic of the ancients, among the great mass of superstitious and fanatical The original German word schwärmerisch implies a state of religious or mystical ecstasy that was often viewed critically by Enlightenment-era writers. teachings, also contained much that was good. For example, the doctrine of the possibility of the spiritual union of man with the Divinity, of the separation of the soul from its body and the power of the passions, and the perfection which one imagined it possible for man to attain thereby, is always very sublime and comforting, just like many other doctrines that were later [known] under the name of philosophy

• Others claim that this was not the actual cause of his death; rather, he was condemned because he contradicted the poets who attributed human passions, sin, and shame to the deities. Although, according to Plato, he also accepted lesser deities to whom worship was due, it is clear from Xenophon that in the depths of his heart he recognized only a single eternal Principle original: "Principium".