Austin has been sniped at for so long that there is now more hole than target. Many would say that this has happened because he is such an obvious target. His conclusions have been widely condemned, his clarity and precision commended, though less fervently. Some have accepted his concepts, but felt them to be inadequate for his task; others have felt the concepts themselves to be inappropriate. Professor Hart succinctly expresses a new orthodoxy in claiming, “Austin … was sometimes clearly wrong; but … when this was so he was always wrong clearly.” This is surprising as Hart is elsewhere one of the most perceptive and diligent searchers for ambiguities and inconsistencies in Austin's work. It is contended that the conventional view of Austin as a careful and painstaking manipulator of hard concepts is quite unjustified. This is not so much to suggest that Austin was wrong as that he was muddled, inconsistent and ambiguous. It is to suggest that time spent shooting at Austin is invariably successful, and invariably unrewarding. An attack upon one version of a doctrine can usually be evaded by reference to another. If Austin is often wrong, he is also often right, and frequently on the same point but in a different place. For those committed to a general attitude towards Austin this may be merely aggravating; for the uncommitted it can be vastly stimulating.