Authority

Authority, it seems to me, has progressively corroded during the half-century of my adult life. It has become overshadowed, perhaps, by the word's more negative derivatives: "authorize" and "authoritarian." It has come to be seen that authority sanctions authorization and justifies authoritarian actions. If we track back to the root of authority, it is "author." The author wrote the book. If, by "book," we mean more strictly a treatise, a systematic study of a given subject, or a document (as in the word's etymology), rather than any literary composition (as it is commonly understood today), the author claims by right the authority on that subject for having written it for public inspection. The author's authority thus merits respect and endows power. The author, exercising that power, authorizes, and, in excess, becomes authoritarian. In the area of knowledge I can claim authority, I insist on a tight hold on it.

英語の "authority" は "author" の派生語ですから、権力の意味は含意していても、厳密には「著者としての実権、又は影響力」とでも云った意味だと思いますが、日本語では、オーソーリティとも、又は第一人者と云いますけど、訳語は漢語をそのまま借用した「権威」で、英訳すれば　 ”might by right” 　でしょうか。著者を権力者にしてしまう感じです。

In Japanese, we say phonetically "authority" or, otherwise, "dai-ichi-nin-sha" (Number One Person) but the proper translation is "ken-i" borrowed from Chinese, which signifies something like "might by right." This seems to make the author ("chosha") by definition authoritarian. But "auctoritas" in Latin apparently already had extended meanings from "invention" to "influence" and "command."