In his inaugural lecture as Rouse Ball Professor of English Law at Cambridge, Jack Beatson presents a thought-provoking picture of the state of common law at the end of the twentieth century. After a broad-ranging survey of the subject, Professor Beatson concludes that the valuable heritage of the common law deserves to be preserved, and that 'to ignore the contribution of the statute book in the search for principle is to use a kaleidoscope with three quarters of the pieces of glass blacked out'.