This book clearly deals with its topic like a case study of three people involved in the active pursuit of a science. As might be expected from someone aware of the intellectual climate in which they worked, a great deal of attention is devoted to the sorry state of their relationships with each other, ambition being an obstacle to agreement in this field. The scholarly view offered by the college professor who put this collection of observations together is most daring when it offers a challenge to the individual attempt to make sense of a truly ominous situation, as when Walter Kaufmann tackles Jung's "Answer to Job."

Listen, football fans: when the ball gets loose like this, people start to think about the last opportunity that they had to drop back and punt. According to my Concordance to the King James Version of the Bible, in Job 31:33, Job admitted, in his attempts to justify himself, that he would have sinned if he hid his transgressions like Adam. This is followed by a speech by Elihu in which his anger burst out. The key to his anger is contained in Job 34:17, "Could an enemy of justice ever govern?"

In the strange world that we actually live in, people would be well advised to get used to this kind of thing when they are young, so that, later in life, if they ever encounter anyone who has a more outrageous theory about what is really going on, their contact with the intellectual upper crust will remind them of how goofy this kind of thing usually turns out to be. For some people, this book might make more sense than starting their day with a breakfast cereal that tells them, "Check bottom of box to see if you are a winner."