Hence it is manifest that we must consider the ideal man as existing in the ideal social state. On the evolution hypothesis, the two presuppose one another; and only when they co-exist can there exist that ideal conduct which Absolute Ethics has to formulate, and which Relative Ethics has to take as the standard by which to estimate divergencies from right, or degrees of wrong. CHAPTER XVI. THE SCOPE OF ETHICS. § 107. At the outset it was shown that as the conduct with which Ethics deals is a part of conduct at large, conduct at large must be understood before this part can be understood. After taking a general view of conduct, not human only but sub-human, and not only as existing but as evolving, we saw that Ethics has for its subject-matter the most highly-evolved conduct as displayed by the most highly-evolved being, Man--is a specification of those traits which his conduct assumes on reaching its limit of evolution. Conceived thus as comprehending the laws of right living at large, Ethics has a wider field than is commonly assigned to it. Beyond the conduct commonly approved or reprobated as right or wrong, it includes all conduct which furthers or hinders, in either direct or indirect ways, the welfare of self or others. As foregoing chapters in various places imply, the entire field of Ethics includes the two great divisions, personal and social. There is a class of actions directed to personal ends, which are to be judged in their relations to personal well-being, considered apart from the well-being of others: though they secondarily affect fellow-men these primarily affect the agent himself, and must be classed as intrinsically right or wrong according to their beneficial or detrimental effects on him. There are actions of another class which affect fellow-men immediately and remotely, and which, though their results to self are not to be ignored, must be judged as good or bad mainly by their results to others. Actions of this last class fall into two groups. Those of the one group achieve ends in ways that do or do not unduly interfere with the pursuit of ends by others--actions which, because of this difference, we call respectively unjust or just. Those forming the other group are of a kind which influence the states of others without directly interfering with the relations between their labors and the results, in one way or the other--actions which we speak of as beneficent or maleficent. And the conduct which we regard as beneficent is itself subdivisible according as it shows us a self-repression to avoid giving pain, or an expenditure of effort to give pleasure--negative beneficence and positive beneficence.