'I was trained as a lawyer. Don't look so horrified, Mr. Waterhouse, it is respectable enough, for an educated man in Germany. You must remember that we don't have a Royal Society. After I was awarded my Doctor of Jurisprudence, I went to work for the Archbishop of Mainz, who gave me the job of reforming the legal code – which was a Tower of Babel – Roman and Germanic and local common law all mangled together. I concluded that there was little point in jury-rigging something. What was needed was to break everything down into certain basic concepts and begin from first principles.'