And now having from the sociological point of view recognized the need for, and authority of, these changing systems of ethics, proper to changing ratios between warlike activities and peaceful activities, we have, from the same point of view, to consider the system of ethics proper to the state in which peaceful activities are undisturbed. § 51. If, excluding all thought of danger or hinderances from causes external to a society, we set ourselves to specify those conditions under which the life of each person, and therefore of the aggregate, may be the greatest possible, we come upon certain simple ones which, as here stated, assume the form of truisms. For, as we have seen, the definition of that highest life accompanying completely evolved conduct, itself excludes all acts of aggression--not only murder, assault, robbery, and the major offences generally, but minor offences, such as libel, injury to property and so forth. While directly deducting from individual life, these indirectly cause perturbations of social life. Trespasses against others rouse antagonisms in them; and if these are numerous the group loses coherence. Hence, whether the integrity of the group itself is considered as the end, or whether the end considered is the benefit ultimately secured to its units by maintaining its integrity, or whether the immediate benefit of its units taken separately is considered the end, the implication is the same: such acts are at variance with achievement of the end. That these inferences are self-evident and trite (as indeed the first inferences drawn from the data of every science that reaches the deductive stage naturally are) must not make us pass lightly over the all-important fact that, from the sociological point of view, the leading moral laws are seen to follow as corollaries from the definition of complete life carried on under social conditions. Respect for these primary moral laws is not enough, however. Associated men pursuing their several lives without injuring one another but without helping one another, reap no advantages from association beyond those of companionship. If, while there is no co-operation for defensive purposes (which is here excluded by the hypothesis) there is also no co-operation for satisfying wants, the social state loses its _raison d'être_--almost, if not entirely. There are, indeed, people who live in a condition little removed from this: as the Esquimaux. But though these, exhibiting none of the co-operation necessitated by war, which is unknown to them, lead lives such that each family is substantially independent of others, occasional co-operation occurs. And, indeed, that families should live in company without ever yielding mutual aid, is scarcely conceivable.