Maritain developed Rights Theory (Wallace, 1999). He assigned rights to persons before identifying their social and historical context and the role they play in their communal setting. It is from this pre-political state, "from the simple fact that man is man," that Maritain developed a set of fundamental, primordial rights which are possessed by each individual. Maritain developed a rights theory whereby rights fall into three different classes: first, primordial rights derive directly and necessarily from natural law; secondly, rights of the law of nations derive necessarily from the natural law given certain conditions; and thirdly, rights of positive Jaw are contingently derived from the natural law. It is Maritain's description of primordial rights which seems to be in particular conflict with Aquinas' natural law framework. "Primoridal rights" exist on account of our eternal end in God and our initial membership in a family but prior to our incorporation into civil society. These primary, fundamental rights take precedence over duties to the common good, for they are not granted by society but are recognized as integral to human dignity. Primordial rights include the right to life and the right to religious liberty. They give a person the right to transcend social duties and the temporal common good in order to follow his or her conscience. Thus if there happens to be a conflict between the voice of conscience understood as God's will and familial or social obligations, the voice of conscience comes first. Here Maritain implies that human dignity can be secured apart from civil connections.