6. _Nature requires that men generally live in society, domestic and civil, so that the individual be of the family, and families form associations, which again conspire to form one perfect community, which is the State_. The requirement of nature may be gathered from the universal practice of mankind. "If it (the word _savage_) means people without a settled form of government, without laws and without a religion, then, go where you like, you will not find such a race." (Max Müller, in _Nineteenth Century_, Jan. 1885, p. 114.) The same may be gathered from a consideration of what the State is, and of the ends which it serves. The State, as we have seen (n. 2), is a union of septs and villages, or of parishes and municipalities. The individual is born and nurtured in the family, and ordinarily becomes in time the parent of a new family. Families must combine to form septs by blood, or villages (or parishes) by locality. Municipalities we may leave aside, for a municipality is a potential State. But we must consider the sept, village, or parish, which is the community intermediate between family and State. Among the cogent reasons which require families to enter into this association, we may mention friendship, intermarriage, the interchange of services and commodities, the cultivation of the arts, the preservation of traditions and inventions. 7. But it is further necessary that these septs, villages, or parishes, should band together and combine to form a higher community, self-sufficient and perfect,--for the determining of rights which Natural Law leaves undetermined,--for the punishing of disturbers of the peace, if need be, even with death,--for defence against a common enemy,--for a union of counsels and resources to the execution of magnificent works. This self-sufficient and perfect community, which is not part of any higher community, is the State.