It is a great honour to be invited to give this annual lecture in memory of Martin Wight, especially for one who never knew him, and is not a member of the academic community concerned with International Relations, of which he was so distinguished a figure. I have to admit that, when I was invited to give this lecture, I had heard of and knew nothing about him. That is, perhaps, not surprising, as very little of his work was published in his lifetime, and I did not move in the academic circles in which it was well known.