These essays may at first give the impression of being no more than hatchet jobs in which Thomas Carlyle, Benedetto Croce, T.S. Eliot, Martin Heidegger, Immanuel Kant, Bishop John A.T. Robinson, John Ruskin, Gilbert Ryle, A.N. WHitehead and others are taken to task for various linguistic imbecilities. In fact the author's purpose lies not so much in putting down the mighty from their seats as in dissecting some common types of worthless writing. The lessons he draws - founded on the theory of human thought and behaviour he propounded in his two earlier (posthumously published) books - have wider applications.