It is the greatest honour for me to be invited to give the Wilberforce Lecture this year, on Lord Wilberforce's ninetieth birthday. In my generation, he has provided an inspiration for us all—an example which we may strive, but never succeed, to emulate. His brilliant intellect the modernity of his outlook, his capacity to look beyond the immediate problem to the more fundamental issues, his readiness to innovate—all coupled with a disarming informality of address—make him at the same time one of the most profound lawyers, and one of the most attractive men, of his generation. It is a privilege for me to have known him. I am his admiring, but still struggling, disciple.