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The problem of natural right is a philosophical and not a historical problem. But today, in order to think of a philosophical discussion of natural right, we have to engage in historical studies. The present-day criticism of natural right is merely a repetition of the age-old criticism of natural right, according to which all notions of justice or morality are conventional. Modern natural right is presented as being completely independent of positive right; it is related to the idea of a state of nature; it tends to be a doctrine of rights rather than of duties; it is a doctrine of freedom. Modern natural right, whose originator is Thomas Hobbes, must be considered in the context of the attempt at establishing a new science of politics, directed against the utopianism of classical political science, and oriented towards a desirable order whose actualization would be a matter of necessity.