Civil Authority is the moral power of command, supported (when
need be) by physical coercion, which the State exercises over
its members. We shall consider here the nature, sources, limits,
divisions, origin, and the true and false theories of authority.
Authority is as great a necessity to mankind as sobriety, and as
natural. By "natural" here is meant, not what accrues to man
without any effort of his own (teeth, for example), but what man
must secure, even with an effort, because without it he cannot
well be man. It is natural to man to live in civil society; and
where there is civil society, there must be authority. Anarchy
is the disruption of society. Speaking generally, we may say no
man loves isolation, solitude, loneliness, the life of a hermit;
on the other hand, while many dislike the authority under which
they live, no man wishes for anarchy. What malcontents aim at is
a change of government, to get authority into their own hands
and govern those who now govern them. Even the professed
anarchist r