of the belief in, and during the
rule of, these pseudodivine beings, ever larger and larger circles of
people grouped and established themselves around them, and under an
appearance of governing took advantage of the people. And when the old
deception of a supernatural and God-appointed authority had dwindled
away these men were only concerned to devise a new one which like its
predecessor should make it possible to hold the people in bondage to a
limited number of rulers.

IV

_Children, do you want to know by what your hearts should be guided?
Throw aside your longings and strivings after that which is null and
void; get rid of your erroneous thoughts about happiness and wisdom, and
your empty and insincere desires. Dispense with these and you will know
Love._ KRISHNA.

_Be not the destroyers of yourselves. Arise to your true Being, and then
you will have nothing to fear._ KRISHNA.

New justifications have now appeared in place of the antiquated,
obsolete, religious ones. These new justifications are just as
inadequate as the old ones, but as they are new their futility cannot
immediately be recognized by the majority of men. Besides this, those
who enjoy power propagate these new sophistries and support them so
skilfully that they seem irrefutable even to many of those who
suffer from the oppression these theories seek to justify. These new
justifications are termed 'scientific'. But by the term 'scientific' is
understood just what was formerly understood by the term 'religious':
just as formerly everything called 'religious' was held to be
unquestionable simply because it was called religious, so now all that
is called 'scientific' is held to be unquestionable. In the present case
the obsolete religious justification of violence which consisted in the
recognition of the supernatural personality of the God-ordained ruler
('there is no power but of God') has been superseded by the 'scientific'
justification which puts forward, first, the assertion that because the
coercion of man by man has existed in all ages, it follows that such
coercion must continue to exist. This assertion that people should
continue to live as they have done throughout past ages rather than
as their reason and conscience indicate, is what 'science' calls
'the historic law'. A further 'scientific' justification lies in the
statement that as among plants and wild beasts there is a constant
struggle for existence which always result