Our search for rights began with Plato, who, despite not using the concept, framed for us a structure of understanding within which rights might be created and developed. If we accept Hobbes's approach, by contrast, we find very little further help, since Hobbes, like Plato, not only writes at a level of generality that rarely mentions the details of rights but also excludes much of what we ordinarily think about rights, stressing – where he does go into detail – the rights of the sovereign rather than the rights of the subject or citizen, for example. In particular we often think of rights – although not all of them – as independent of the state, but that approach is not permissible in Hobbes's view, since rights are essentially what the law gives us. A right to resist when attacked – even when attacked by the state -is the only independent right, but even that is not a “right” as ordinarily understood for it is only an unprotected liberty. It is reason rather than rights that is authoritative for Hobbes, as we have seen, but we cannot appeal to reason as independent of the state since we have given up to the state many of the judgements about what reason requires. A very different view about rights was expressed in 1690 by Locke, who was extremely influential in the development of democratic ideas.