Under the pressure of circumstances or with the gradual increase of information and intelligence the traditional may undergo slight modifications which scarcely rank as conscious departures from what has been passively accepted. The algebraic sum of such departures may, with the lapse of time, come to be by no means insignificant, yet no individual may have exercised in any considerable degree conscious reflection or shown in any large measure freedom of choice. On the other hand, the social will may, at times, reveal itself in deliberate decisions, preceded by much conscious deliberation, and initiating wide departures from established usage. The presence of new enemies or a diminution of the food-supply may awake a primitive community from its lethargy, leading it to modify its habits and adjust itself to new conditions. A barbarous horde may set out upon a career of conquest, and may introduce revolutionary changes into its manner of life. A civilized nation may come to the conclusion that, in the course of human events, it has become necessary for it to dissolve the bands which have held it to another nation; it may frame for itself an independent constitution, embodying new ideals and prescribing a new form of corporate life. But, as in the case of the individual, so in that of the community, the tendency to fall again into a rut is always apparent. Laws, once enacted, lend a passive resistance to change, even when they no longer serve well the ends they were intended to serve. The independence of thought and action revealed in the adoption of new constitutions are not conspicuous in their maintenance. Man collective, as well as man individual, falls into habits, and he commits to his unthinking self what was wrought out by himself as thinking and consciously choosing. Passive acceptance of the traditional again wins the day and becomes a ruling factor in action. [Footnote: "It is indisputable that much the greatest part of mankind has never shown a particle of desire that its civil institutions should be improved since the moment when external completeness was first given to them by their embodiment in some permanent record." MAINE, _Ancient Law_, chapter ii.]