  It is this very distinction between the method of inquiry and the order of teaching that led Zabarella to a bitter controversy with his Paduan college Francesco Piccolomini (1523–1607). They both agreed that ethical inquiry must proceed by deduction from an understanding of the end. In Zabarella’s view all the disciplines whose end is action should be explained in this same way. But Piccolomini could not bring himself to admit that the order of teaching, in ethics as well as in in other practical disciplines, should follow this order of apprehension.  Thus the fundamental question embedded in this dispute is the following: Is the order of teaching a particular discipline necessary or contingent? Zabarella argued for the former: both in discovery and in teaching, one should follow the synthetic order in the sciences and the analytic order in the arts. By making a sharp distinction between the method of discovery and the order of teaching, Piccolomini instead embraced a contingent view of pedagogical method. Wishing to teach others, Piccolomini saw his duty as that of starting out from first principles (a primis principiis). In such a case it is better to begin with the simpler matters and progress toward the end or goal.  (Lines 2002, pp. 254–263)