Hugo Grotius believed that last wills belonged to the Law of Nature, whereas Samuel Pufendorf argued that testamentary succession was a mere creation of human laws. I argue that Pufendorf’s rejection of the Natural Law origins for wills lacks internal consistency in both his Natural Law system and his proprietary rights theory. Pufendorf even contradicts his own previous claim stating wills are recognised by the Law of Nature as useful to the promotion of social peace. Grotius’s analysis of testaments, on the other hand, brief though it may be, is entirely consistent with his previous arguments: that the Law of Nature can attach itself to human creation; and that a human creation such as testamentary succession belongs to Natural Law when derived from, or when it agrees with, human reason and sociability.

雨果·格罗蒂乌斯（Hugo Grotius）相信，最后的遗嘱属于自然法则，而塞缪尔·普芬多夫（Samuel Pufendorf）则认为，遗嘱继承仅是人类法律的创造。我认为普芬多夫对自然法起源的拒绝是出于意志，在他的自然法体系和所有权理论中都缺乏内在的一致性。普芬多夫甚至与他自己先前的主张相矛盾，后者声称遗嘱被《自然法》所承认对促进社会和平有用。另一方面，格罗蒂乌斯对遗嘱的分析虽然很简短，但与他以前的论点完全一致：自然法则可以使自己依附于人类的创造。并且，诸如遗嘱继承之类的人类创造物源自或符合人类理性和社会性时，就属于自然法。