ABSTRACT
Law in the sense of enforced rules of conduct is undoubtedly coeval with society; only the observance of common rules makes the peaceful existence of individuals in society possible. To modern man, the belief that all law governing human action is the product of legislation appears so obvious that the contention that law is older than law-making has almost the character of a paradox. The only country that succeeded in preserving the tradition of the middle ages and built on the medieval ‘liberties’ the modern conception of liberty under the law was England. This was partly due to fact that England escaped a wholesale reception of the late Roman law and with it the conception of law as the creation of some ruler. The chief concern of a common law judge must be the expectations which the parties in a transaction would have reasonably formed on the basis of the general practices that the ongoing order of actions rests on.
