The one thing that Locke places great emphasis on throughout the Treatise is that the main end or purpose for which the state or community is formed is to secure the citizens the natural right to life, liberty and property that they had in the state of nature. In this state of nature, according to Locke, men are born free and equal: free to do as they wish without being required to ask permission of any other man, and equal in the sense that there is no natural political authority of one man over another. However, he immediately underlines that "although it is a state of freedom, it is not a state of license", because it is governed by the law of nature which everyone is obliged to obey. Although Locke is not very specific about the content of the law of nature, he is clear about some details. First, that "reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind whoever wishes to consult it" and secondly, that it principally teaches that "all being equal and independent, no one should harm another in his life, in his freedom or his possessions". Therefore, from the beginning, Locke places the right to possession and the right to life, health and liberty on the same level. We can say that Locke conceived of all natural rights as things that an individual brings with him from birth, and consequently as inalienable or inviolable claims on both society and government. Such claims can never rightly be set aside, for society itself exists to protect them; they can only be regulated to the extent necessary to ensure effective protection for them. In other words, one person's “life, liberty, and property” may be limited only to give effect to another person's equally valid claims to the same right. According to Locke the state of... paper medium. .....ture. As Locke himself says: the obligations of the law of nature do not cease in society. There is therefore a double bind on the body politic; it must respect the natural rights to life, liberty, and property that people enjoyed in the state of nature and respect the law of nature itself. In short, unlike Hobbes' social contract which attributes absolute and unlimited powers to the sovereign, Locke's original contract attributes only limited powers to the community; it is not a bond of slavery but a charter of freedom. In Locke's hands the contract theory is made to serve the purpose for which it was originally stated; that is, to defend the freedom of the individual against the ruler's claim to absolute authority. It goes without saying that Locke uses it to preserve as much of the individual's natural liberty as possible.