DISPUTATION. DICTATION. 1. Many wise things had been said by the experienced masters of old on the subject of disputation. Thus Robert of Sorbon, the founder of the College of the Sorbonne, had put it down in one of his six essential rules for the scholar, that "nothing is perfectly known unless masticated by the tooth of disputation."[252] Our Jesuit critics mention incidentally, in one place, that "their age is eminently versed in disputation."[253] They are cautioning the Professor of Scripture against using disputation at all, lest he come thereby to relinquish his own eloquent style of commentary. For every chair has its own character; and that which the _Ratio Studiorum_ of 1599 attributes to the chair of Scripture includes, among a number of qualifications, this one, which is mentioned in the last place, that, "as far as possible, the Professors be well versed in eloquence."[254] On the other hand, in the proper arena of disputation, they caution Professors against its abuse. Taking note, in one place, of the discord which can arise among learned men, they illustrate their point with some instances, taken precisely from a disputatious tendency, from that exaggerated scholasticism which had run into dialectic excesses. They say: "For the disturbance of harmony, it makes very little difference whether discord arises in great things or in little. It is not only the importance of a question, it is also the spirit of emulation, that fosters contention; so that sometimes a war of words and the bitterest altercation is kept up on a single term and phrase. Forsooth, what is more trivial than to ask whether God is in imaginary space? Yet what tragic scenes does not this very question give rise to!"[255]