ABSTRACT
The theory of natural rights was a special theory of moral rights, conditioned by the peculiar features of an age preoccupied with the mathematical sciences, and anxious to assert the value of individual enterprise, opinion, and belief against traditional political and ecclesiastical authority. Associated with some forms of protestant theology, it stressed the autonomy of the individual conscience; springing from a nascent capitalism, it defended individual property against authoritarian interference; and as the ideology of radical and revolutionary movements, it insisted on free speech and representative institutions.
