  Early modern natural law theory might seem a likely candidate for spawning philosophical cosmopolitanism. Its secularizing tendencies and the widespread individualist view among its defenders that all humans share certain fundamental characteristics would seem to suggest a point of unification for humankind as a whole. However, according to many early modern theorists, what all individuals share is a fundamental striving for self-preservation, and the universality of this striving does not amount to a fundamental bond that unites (or should unite) all humans in a universal community.