The same theory holds, with modifications, for large bodies of men within a state. If the officials of the miners’ union, for instance, take a position, it is perfectly idle for an employer to deny that they speak for the union miners. He should deny that they speak for the nonunion miners, but if the question at issue requires the assent of the union, then, unless the union itself impeaches the leaders, the public must accept them as authorized. But suppose the leaders are challenged within the union. How shall the importance of the challenge be estimated by the public? Recall that the object is to find out not whether the objectors are right but simply whether the spokesmen can in fact commit their constituents. In weighing the challenge the public’s concern is to know how far the opposition can by virtue of its numbers, or of its strategic importance, or its determination, impair the value of an assent. But if we expected the public to make judgments of this sort we should be asking too much of it. The importance of an opposition can be weighed, if at all, only by rough, external criteria. With an opposition that does not challenge the credentials of the spokesmen, which criticizes but is not in rebellion, the public has no concern. That is an internal affair. It is only an opposition which threatens not to conform that has to be considered. In such a case, if the spokesmen are elected, they can be held competent to give a reliable assent only until a new election has been held. If the spokesmen are not elective, and a rebellious opposition is evident, their assent can only be taken as tentative. These criteria do not, to be sure, weigh the importance of an opposition, but, by limiting the kind of settlement which can reasonably be made in face of an opposition, they allow for its effect. They introduce the necessary modification to make workable the general principle that the test of assent by large bodies of men is simply that their spokesmen have agreed. 4 The test of conformity is closely related to the test of assent. For it can be assumed that open criticism of a rule, a custom, a law, an institution, is already accompanied by or will soon be followed by evasion of that rule. It is a fairly safe hypothesis that the run of men wish to conform; that any body of men aroused to the point where they will pay the price of open heresy probably has an arguable case; more certainly that that body will include a considerable number who have passed over the line of criticism into the practice of nonconformity. Their argument may be wrong, the remedy may be foolish, but the fact that they openly criticize at some personal risk is a sign that the rule is not working well. Widespread criticism, therefore, has a significance beyond its intellectual value. It is almost always a symptom on the surface that the rule is unstable.