The modern conception of natural law as meaning or implying natural rights was elaborated primarily by thinkers of the 17th and 18th centuries. The intellectual—and especially the scientific—achievements of the 17th century (including the materialism of Hobbes, the rationalism of Descartes and Leibniz, the pantheism of Spinoza, and the empiricism of Bacon and Locke) encouraged a distinctly modern belief in natural law and universal order and, during the 18th century—the so-called Age of Enlightenment, inspired by a growing confidence in human reason and in the perfectibility of human affairs—led to the more comprehensive expression of this belief. Particularly important were ...(100 of 15274 words)