ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the theory of natural rights, the theory of the relation of law to natural rights, and the theory of natural law and of the possibility of deducing a fixed and complete system of positive law from the principles of natural law. According to the Grotian definition, a right is "that quality in a person which makes it just or right for him either to possess certain things or to do certain actions". The medieval idea was that law existed to maintain those powers of control over things and those powers of action which the social system had awarded or attributed to each man. By a natural transition, the common-law limitations upon royal authority became natural limitations upon all authority; the common-law rights of Englishmen became the natural rights of man. On the contrary the chiefest of social interests is the moral and social life of the individual; and thus individual interests become largely identical with a social interest.
