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During the Age of Enlightenment, two different and in some ways contradictory visions of natural law were common in contemporary discourse. One variant derived from Hugo Grotius’ theories predicated on the virtue of self-preservation in a theoretical state of nature. “Grotian” natural law reflected norms in the contemporary states system – in which treaty obligations and custom, freely undertaken by sovereigns, were the sources of international law. The second version emphasized changes to society predicated on Enlightenment values. Enlightenment natural law was premised on reason, in theory, with commentators often claiming it to be written in peoples’ hearts. It was Enlightenment natural law that became the target of derision by positivists, starting with Jeremy Bentham’s attack on it as “nonsense on stilts.” Meanwhile, nineteenth-century positivism can, in fact, be seen as a legacy of Grotian natural law. Both traditions continue to this day, with the attendant tension in international law.