'An exception [to the intellectual triviality Glasser found at Oxford], far from generously recognised, was R.G. Collingwood in his luminous exposition of the proper business of philosophical enquiry, in lectures and in the Olympian sweep of his book "Speculum Mentis". Its opening sentences I would remember in all the years to come: "All thought exists for the sake of action. We try to understand ourselves and the world only in order that we may learn how to live".'