More simply: You put two things together that have not been put together before.

Formal discussions [were] designed to train their people on how to fight properly over ideas and not egos. . . . Before each meeting, one person, known as “the dealer,” was selected as the speaker. The speaker would present his idea and then try to defend it against a room of engineers and scientists determined to prove him wrong. Such debates

He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that.

The sole object of our discussions is by arguing on both sides to draw out and give shape to some result that may be either true or the nearest possible approximation to the truth.11

In other words: dialogue with both present and past.

The same arguments which we use in persuading others when we speak in public, we employ also when we deliberate in our own thoughts; and while we call eloquent those who are able to speak before a crowd, we regard as sage those who most skilfully debate their problems in their own minds.

Shakespeare’s era prized conversation’s capacity to rub and polish our brains by contact with those of others.

How many different ways can you say “the same thing”?

observing a different religion, within a different era, under duress of different events.