Half a century later, this question of coördination received a still fuller treatment at the hands of the General Francis Piccolomini. After requiring that philosophers and theologians alike finish conscientiously all the matter assigned for each year, he will not allow that "the example of authors who have mixed up subjects, or have followed out their questions into mere minutiæ, can be cited as of any weight with our Professors. For, whatever is to be thought of them, this method is not opportune for practical teaching in the schools." The General scouts the idea of "exploring the treasure-house of possibilities," to find out new questions; for there is reason to fear that "while folks search about for truths not ascertained, they will catch at chimeras and shadows."[283] Hence, as the _Ratio_ prescribes, "opinions which are useless, obsolete, absurd, manifestly false, are not to receive treatment." The Professors are to run rapidly through questions which are easy. In Holy Scripture, difficult passages are not to be dwelt on indefinitely, nor too much time to be given to chronological computations, or topological surveys of the Holy Land. In facing the objection, that all this entails a great expenditure of thought and matter, when Professors must despatch in such short courses what might well be treated in longer terms, the preliminary _Ratio_ draws a sharp line of demarcation between other universities and those conducted by Jesuits. "Whatever is the custom in other universities, our method is very different from theirs, so that no less progress can be made in our schools during four years, than in others during five; because our Professors are for the most part more laborious; we have more numerous exercises; our Society, as standing in need of many workmen, requires that perfection of science which is necessary for its men, not that otiose method of others, who, having no motive of this kind to make them expeditious, divide up into many lectures what could well be treated in fewer; their vacations too are for the most part longer and more frequent."[284] _Ex ungue leonem_, "You can tell a lion by his paw." Let it appear that the brevity which you study is necessitated by your limits of time; let discernment be conspicuous in your selection of matter, whether to treat summarily or to treat copiously; let the alternate courses supplement one another, so that what had to be skimmed over in one quadriennium is dilated upon more at large in your next; then, say the Fathers, the authority which the Professors enjoy with ecclesiastical dignitaries will not suffer the detriment anticipated by some, when we give condensed and accurate treatment in a shorter time of what is usually spread out through a longer.[285] The paw shows the lion.