When Suarez comes to consider how mankind's dominion in common might be individuated in pre-political society, he does not see any problem. He simply assumes that, ‘without prejudice to the rectitude of their conduct, men could, in that state of innocence, take possession of, and divide amongst themselves, certain things, especially those which are moveable and necessary for ordinary use’ (2.14.13). In The Defence of Catholic and Apostolic Faith, he calls this natural and exclusive use right ‘peculiar property’ (dominium peculiare), and says that it is the sort of right a man naturally comes to have in the fruit he gathers (3.2.14; cf. Works, III, i.v.8.18). The right correlates with the natural law duty to abstain from that which belongs to another (2.14.14). Peculiar property is distinguished both from mankind's common property, which it completes, and from private property (dominium modified by proprietas), which is introduced by agreement in the transition to political society (2.14.16).

In contrast to Suarez's insouciance, Grotius explains in detail how his natural common which belongs to no one, but is open to all, is used. Man's historical use right in things attaches to whatever a person first lays hold of (arripere) (2.2.2.1; cf. Olivecrona, 1974a: p. 215). The right correlates with a negative duty on the part of others to abstain: ‘no man could justly take from another, what he had first taken to himself’.