Creative workmanship, fortified in ever-growing measure by the conception of serviceability to human use, works its way gradually into the central place in the theoretical speculations of the time, so that by the close of the era it dominates all intellectual enterprise in the thoughtful portions of Christendom. Hence it becomes not only the instrument of inquiry in the sciences, but a major premise in all work of innovation and reconstruction of the scheme of institutions. In that extensive revision of the institutional framework that characterises modern times it is the life of the common people, their rights and obligations, that is forever in view, and their life is conceived in terms of craftsmanlike industry and the petty trade. By and large, the outcome of this revision of civil and legal matters under handicraft auspices is the system of Natural Rights, including the concept of Natural Liberty. The whole scheme so worked out is manifestly of the same piece with that Order of Nature and Natural Law that dominated the inquiries of the scientists and the speculations of the philosophers. It lies in the nature of the case that the English-speaking community should take the lead in the final advance in all these matters and should work out the most finished, secure and enduring results within these premises, both in the field of scientific inquiry and in that of the theory of institutions. It lies in the nature of the case because the English-speaking community had the benefit of the technological gains made before their time, because they had a long and passably uneventful experience of the handicraft routine in industry and in the workday life to whose wants the handicraft industry ministered, and because the discipline of the handicraft era was not in their case neutralised in its closing phase by the turmoil, insecurity and civic debaucheries of an epoch of war and political intrigue. And here again the neighbouring peoples come into the case as copartners in this work with England in much the same measure in which their experience through this period was of the same general nature.