A Letter to a Hindu, Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy [interesting books to read in english txt] 📗

spheres, and in recent times it has sofaded away as to prevail no longer against man's reasonableunderstanding and the true religious feeling. People saw moreand more clearly, and now the majority see quite clearly, thesenselessness and immorality of subordinating their wills tothose of other people just like themselves, when they are biddento do what is contrary not only to their interests but also totheir moral sense. And so one might suppose that having lostconfidence in any religious authority for a belief in thedivinity of potentates of various kinds, people would try to freethemselves from subjection to it. But unfortunately not onlywere the rulers, who were considered supernatural beings,benefited by having the peoples in subjection, but as a result ofthe belief in, and during the rule of, these pseudodivine beings,ever larger and larger circles of people grouped and establishedthemselves around them, and under an appearance of governing tookadvantage of the people. And when the old