There are instances in which neither the organization of the state, nor the laws according to which it is governed, can be considered as in any sense an expression of the social will. An autocracy, established by force, and ruling without the free consent of the governed, is an external and overruling power. It may be obeyed, but it is not consented to. Nor is any body of law or system of government imposed upon a subject people by an alien and dominant race a fair exponent of the social will of the people thus governed. Custom and public opinion are at variance with law. However just and enlightened the government, as judged from the standpoint of some other race or nation, its control must be felt as oppressive by those upon whom it is imposed. Traditions felt to be the most sacred may be violated; moral laws, as understood by those thus under dictation, may be transgressed by obedience to the law of the land. Where custom, law and public opinion are more nearly the spontaneous outcome of the life of a community, they may with more justice be taken as expressions of the social will of that community as it is at the time. Yet, even here, we must make reservations. The organization of a state represents rather the crystallized will of the past than the free choice of the present. To be sure, it is accepted in the present; but this is little more than the acquiescence of inertia. And public opinion may be at variance both with custom and with law long before it succeeds in modifying either. What is the actual social will of a community during the interval? The past may be felt as exercising a certain tyranny over the present. That the present cannot be cut wholly loose from it is manifest, but how far should its dependence be accepted? In the past there have been historical causes for the rise of dictatorships, of oligarchies, of dominant social classes. The men of a later time inherit such social institutions, may accept them as desirable, or may feel them as instruments of tyranny. Shall we say that they represent the actual social will of the community until such time as they are done away with by a successful revolution? Or shall we say that they are in harmony with the apparent social will only, and really stand condemned? 77. THE WILL OF THE MAJORITY.--Our own democratic institutions rest upon the theory that the social will is to be determined by the majority vote. To be sure, we seem to find it necessary to limit the application of this doctrine, and to seek stability of government by fixing, in certain cases rather arbitrarily, the size of the majority that shall count. [Footnote: See the Constitution of the United States, Article V.] But the doctrine, taken generally, does seem in harmony with the test of rationality developed above. [Footnote: Chapter xvi.] It aims at the satisfaction of many desires--at what may be termed satisfaction _on the whole_.