ABSTRACT\nIt seems as if the majority principle permeated almost all walks of life within a differentiated society � to such an extent that it appears normal to associate it with the nature of democracy and to speak about democratic societies. Although early Christianity commenced with an acknowledgement of the conscience of an individual, the aim of church unity soon required that individuals sacrifice their autonomy. Was it necessary to assume that God always sided with the majority and do we have to distinguish between individuals as such and individuals as members merged into a whole? The apparent tension derives from the difference between multiplicity and wholeness revealing the role of two modes of explanation: number and space. It was the Roman jurists who asked questions about the grounds of validity of the majority principle by contemplating how the minority should abide by the decisions of the majority and what should happen to dissenters. In extreme cases force determined the issue. This explains why jural validity preferably required unanimity. Eventually the maxim for the minority was more modest: follow the majority by accepting the majority as having a will of its own. Within canon law the majority is treated as if it were the will of all. At the Third Lateran Council (1179) the number of required votes was established to have a two-thirds majority. The canonists were the first to introduce a distinction between the free rights of individuals and the particular rights of corporations. A new fiction now justified equating the major part (major pars) of an assembly of representatives with the whole itself. Within social contract theories the majority played an important role. But in the thought of Rousseau tension emerged between the general will and the will of all individuals. By interchanging the whole-parts relation with the relation of super- and subordination within the state, Rousseau\'s social contract theory terminated in assigning an absolute and unlimited power to the general will. It is argued that the majority principle is incapable of functioning as a yardstick for justice and truth � neither of which could be established by a majority vote. Assigning an unlimited legal power to the majority leads to a totalitarian and absolutistic view. The limitations of the majority principle are briefly demonstrated with reference to mathematics and biology. In text books of logic this impasse is designated as the majority fallacy. South Africa is currently facing protests with claims bordering on a dictatorship of the majority. The article is concluded with a brief exposition of the �organic� view of Gierke and with a hint towards an alternative view.

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