What follows is a basic outline of the development of this concept through Milton's time. The eternal law of the divine reason, though it is unknowable to us in its perfection as it is in God's mind, is yet known to us in part not only by revelation but also by the operations of our reason. Human law must be the particular application of the natural law. Man's innate nature and his propensities are viewed as ideal or inherently good. Man's innate nature and propensities are not viewed as ideal or inherently good.
Man is motivated first and foremost by the desire to survive.
This requires that all men invest their rights of self-help in a sovereign, whether that sovereign be an individual or an assembly, and subjecting themselves to the laws of that sovereign.