A.B.C. OF ANARCHISM of that authority, it is always the same executioner yielding power over you through your fear of punishment in one form or another. You are afraid of God and the devil, of the priest and the neighbour, of your employer and boss, of the politician and policeman, of the judge and the jailer, of the law and the government. All your life is a long chain of fears-fears which bruise your body and lacerate your soul. On those fea~s is based the authority of God, of the church, of parents, of capitalist and ruler. Look into your heart and see i:f what I say is not true. Why, even among children the ten-year-oitl Johnny bosses his younger brother or sister by the authority of his greater physical strength, just as Johnny's father bosses him by his superior strength, and by Johnny's dependence on his support. You stand for the authority of priest and preacher because you think they can "call down the wrath of God upon your head." You submit to the domination of boss, judge, and government because of their power to deprive you of work, to ruin your business, to put you in prison-a power, by the way, that you yourself have given into their hands. So authority rules your whole life, the authority of the past and the pre~nt, of the dead and the living, and your existence is a continuous invasion and violation of yQurself, a constant subjection to the thoughts and the will of some one else. And as you are invaded and violated, so you subconsciouslyrevenge yourself by invading and violatini others over whom you have authority or can ex•ercise compulsion, physical or moral. In this way all life has become a crazy-quilt of authority, of domination and submission, of command and obedience, of coercion, and subjection, of rulers and ruled, of violence and force in a thousand and one forms. · Can you wonder that even idealists are still held in the meshes of this spi~it of authority and violence, and are often impelled by their feelings and environment to invasive acts entirely at variance with their ideas ? We are all still barbarians who resort to force and violence to settle our debts, difficulties, and troubles. Violence is the method of ignorance, the weapon of the weak. The strong of heart and brain need no violence, for they are irresistible in their consciousness of being riaht. The further we get away from primitiv>eman and the hatchei° age, the less recourse ~e shall have to force and violence. The more enlightened man will becomo, the less he will employ compulsion and coercion. He will rise from the dust and stand erect : he will bow to no tsar either in heaven or on earth. He will hecomc fully human when he will scorn to rul,e and refuse to be 16 Biblloteca Gino Bianco
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