Can Gaius Really Be Compared To Darwin?
One might, by way of introduction, return to the general question. What is one to make of the debate between Professor Birks and the apparent schematic disorder of the common law? One immediate response is to consign this whole debate to a past age. Those who believe that meaningful legal reform can be achieved through classification risk being ridiculed.7 Such a view is understandable. The amount of intellectual energy spent on emancipating unjust enrichment from the categories of contract, tort and equity seems to bear little relation to the actual social benefits detectable in the restitution decisions themselves.8 And the experimentation with the public and private law dichotomy appears to have proved of little worth in the face of such social horrors as child abuse.9