ied to the fabric of relations and
prescribed positions with which functions are permanently connected."
Just as every individual member of a community participates in the
process by which custom and public opinion are made, so also he
participates in the creation of the structure, that "cake of custom"
which, when it embodies a definite social function, we call an
institution.

Institutions may be created just as laws are enacted, but only when a
social situation exists to which they correspond will they become
operative and effective. Institutions, like laws, rest upon the mores
and are supported by public opinion. Otherwise they remain mere paper
projects or artefacts that perform no real function. History records the
efforts of conquering peoples to impose upon the conquered their own
laws and institutions. The efforts are instructive, but not encouraging.
The most striking modern instance is the effort of King Leopold of
Belgium to introduce civilization into the Congo Free State.[258]

Law, like public opinion, owes its rational and secular character to the
fact that it arose out of an effort to compromise conflict and to
interpret matters which were in dispute.

To seek vengeance for a wrong committed was a natural impulse, and the
recognition of this fact in custom established it not merely as a right
but as a duty. War, the modern form of trial by battle, the vendetta,
and the duel are examples that have survived down to modern times of
this natural and primitive method of settling disputes.

In all these forms of conflict custom and the mores have tended to limit
the issues and define the conditions under which disputes might be
settled by force. At the same time public opinion, in passing judgment
on the issues, exercised a positive influence on the outcome of the
struggle.

Gradually, as men realized the losses which conflicts incurred, the
community has intervened to prevent them. At a time when the blood feud
was still sanctioned by the mores, cities of refuge and sanctuaries were
established to which one who had incurred a blood feud might flee until
his case could be investigated. If it then appeared that the wrong
committed had been unintentional or if there were other mitigating
circumstances, he might find in the sanctuary protection. Otherwise, if
a crime had been committed in cold blood, "lying in wait," or "in
enmity," as the ancient Jewish law books called it, he might be put to
death by the