eight lectures in this volume, though delivered on separate occasions, are interconnected and deal with my present preoccupations.2 To me the development of law and its relationship with the society in which it operates is mysterious. This relationship is more tenuous than scholars seem to think and does not appear to be a constant. Lawmaking depends on the imagination of law makers which often does not square with social reality. The overwhelming feature of law is the need for authority which 2 The first, delivered in Edinburgh, on 12 November 2001, as the Annual Stair Society Lecture will appear elsewhere with variations. I could not refuse its publication in a Stair Society Miscellany volume edited by Hector MacQueen. It appears here because it is fundamental to what I set out to do. T
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