process of voting the individual places himself in
subordination to a power of which he is a part, but in this way, that it
is left to his own volition whether he will belong to the superior or
the inferior, i.e., the outvoted party. We are not now interested in
cases of this complex problem in which the superiority is entirely
formal, as, for example, in resolves of scientific congresses, but only
with those in which the individual is constrained to an action by the
will of the party outvoting him, that is, in which he must practically
subordinate himself to the majority. This dominance of numbers through
the fact that others, though only equal in right, have another opinion,
is by no means the matter of course which it seems to us today in our
time of determinations by masses. Ancient German law knew nothing of it.
If one did not agree with the resolve of the community, he was not bound
by it. As an application of this principle, unanimity was later
necessary in the choice of king, evidently because it could not be
expected or required that one who had not chosen the king would obey
him. The English baron who had opposed authorizing a levy, or who had
not been present, often refused to pay it. In the tribal council of the
Iroquois, as in the Polish Parliament, decisions had to be unanimous.
There was therefore no subordination of an individual to a majority,
unless we consider the fact that a proposition was regarded as rejected
if it did not receive unanimous approval, a subordination, an outvoting,
of the person proposing the measure.

When, on the contrary, majority rule exists, two modes of subordination
of the minority are possible, and discrimination between them is of the
highest sociological significance. Control of the minority may, in the
first place, arise from the fact that the many are more powerful than
the few. Although, or rather because, the individuals participating in a
vote are supposed to be equals, the majority have the physical power to
coerce the minority. The taking of a vote and the subjection of the
minority serves the purpose of avoiding such actual measurement of
strength, but accomplishes practically the same result through the count
of votes, since the minority is convinced of the futility of such resort
to force. There exist in the group two parties in opposition as though
they were two groups, between which relative strength, represented by
the vote, is to decide.

Quite another prin