The scheme of Natural Rights, and of Natural Liberty, which so emerges is of a pronounced individualistic tenor, as it should be to answer to the scheme of experience embodied in the system of handicraft. In the crafts, particularly during the protracted early phases of the system, it is the individual workman, working for a livelihood by use of his own personal force, dexterity and diligence, that stands out as the main fact; so much so, indeed, that he appears to have stood, in the apprehension of his time, as the sole substantial factor in the industrial organisation. Similarly under the canon of Natural Liberty the individual is thrown on his own devices for his life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. The craftsman by immemorial custom traditionally disposed of his work and its product as he chose, under the rules of his gild. He was by prescription in full possession of what he made, subject only to the gild regulations imposed for the good of his neighbours who were similarly placed. The most sacred right included in the scheme of Natural Rights is that of property in whatever wealth has been honestly acquired, subject only to the qualification that it must not be turned to the detriment of one’s fellows. In the days of the typical handicraft system the petty trade runs along with the handicraft industry, in such a way that every master craftsman is more or less of a trader, disposing of his goods or services in plenary discretion, and even the apprentices and journeymen similarly bargain for their terms of work and at times for the disposal of their product; while the professional itinerant trader is a member of this industrial community on much the same footing as the craftsmen proper. So it is a secure item in the scheme of Natural Rights that all persons not under tutelage have an indefeasible right to dispose by purchase and sale not only of products of their own hands but of whatever items they have come by through alienation by its producer or lawful owner. And ownership is in natural-rights theory always to be traced back to the creative workmanship of its first possessor.[136]