 As a natural law theorist, Leibniz holds that compliance with the set of universal ethical principles that make up the natural law is necessary and sufficient to achieve the good. Also, like the eminent modern natural lawyer Hugo Grotius (1583–1645), whom Leibniz greatly admired—referring to him as the “incomparable Grotius” (PW, “Opinion on the Principles of Pufendorf,” p. 65; T §6, p. 77), he believes that the natural law and the obligation to comply with it are independent of God's will. It is not possible, in other words, for God to have legislated a different set of moral absolutes than those that obtain; nor do the moral absolutes derive their obligatory authority from having been legislated by God. According to Leibniz,