These critics express their mind upon the need which exists, of reviving considerably the fervor and dignity of this exercise, and so restoring it to its former educational influence. But we can observe for ourselves, how congenial an element the whole exercise must be in a system like this, which is preëminently oral--oral examinations, oral and self-reliant defence and attack, free and open lecturing, with the influence of eye, voice, and person, to bring everything home, even though all the while there is no question of oratory, but of mere teaching. In the earlier stages, too, of the scholar's life, however much has been made of the acquirement of style, "forging the word with Grammar," as Robert of Sorbon had said, "and polishing it with Rhetoric," to make it glow on the written page, yet from the very first, also, no less account has been taken of the ability to express one's thought, with perfect presence of mind, without depending upon note or book. In the higher faculties, this holds good more than ever. Now the time has come for matter of the most approved kind. And the independent, self-possessed delivery of one's thoughts, with the power to force them home unto conviction, or to maintain them against all odds, appears not only as the scope proposed in the system, but also as the historical result, effected in the public career of the Order. Father Laynez, at the Conference of Poissy, contended thus with Peter Martyr and others; Possevino at Lyons with Viret, using, not so much the severe syllogistic form, as copious and learned discussion. Maldonado was double-handed, either syllogistic or discursive. In the Conference at Sedan, in 1572, he argued first in dialectic form; then, on the demand of his opponents for a different kind of weapon, he took with the same facility to discursive exposition. Edmund Campian, in England, on being removed from the rack more dead than alive, was immediately brought face to face with Newell and Day, able champions as well of the Queen's spiritual supremacy, as of the doctrine of Justification by Faith alone. He proceeded to argue: "If faith alone justifies, it justifies without charity; but without charity it does not justify; therefore faith alone does not justify." Now for the answer, clear and incisive as the propositions. Deny or distinguish major or minor proposition, if you want to deny the conclusion; for, those premises standing, the inference remains intact, since the syllogism is perfect in form. And so argumentations proceed.