 Though this is not an article on the natural law, these points are necessary preliminaries for considering Grotius’ natural law views. If Grotius is at all known to philosophers today, it is for being “the father of natural law” (as put by, e.g., Vreeland 1917). At this juncture, we need not assess the validity of this claim (for more on Grotius’ originality, see  Section 6  below). Instead, we ought to understand Grotius’ actual views on the laws of nature. To understand his views, four issues need to be examined: first, the source of the laws; second, their nature or content; third, their force or obligatory status; finally, their scope.