Natural law thinking led to the development of natural rights. If human beings had a nature, and if that nature was reason, then man had a right to exercise his reason—and to exercise his will so long as he hurt no one else. As Hugo Grotius stated, “God created man free and sui iuris [under his own dominion], so that the actions of each individual and the use of his possessions were made subject not to another’s will but to his own.”11
