ABSTRACT
If we add the notions that metaphor is not a serious way of thinking, that metaphors are merely decorative, not structural, in thought, that they are fanciful and, unless used by Poets (and perhaps even then), flimsy, frivolous, irresponsible and unreliable: add in too the associations of the word 'concrete' (hard, solid, heavy, detailed, business-like, suitable for foundations, brute fact) and those of 'abstract' (thin or hot air, remote, empty, invisible, intangible, not to be grasped, sublime, remote) this common assumption or prejudice is not difficult to understand. That it is deplorable and disastrous, that it hinders its victims in acquiring control of an immense range of the most important uses of language and modes of thought, that it deprives them of powers wh ich they badly need, wiII, I take it, require littie showing (60). Here he evidently does not think existing skills are very great, but believes that by means of the correct theory of metaphor, if practised through judging the metaphors of others and inventing paralleiones of one's own, reading, writing, thinking and living may all grow better, showing a reassociation of sensibility.
