Both having tolerably hard heads, the argument would of necessity be long and heated.

Phrases that have since come to be meaningless had, in those days, a real significance.
When a Palaeolithic politician claimed to have "crushed his critic," he meant that he had succeeded in dropping a tree or a ton of earth upon him.

When it was said that one bright and intelligent member of that early sociology had "annihilated his opponent," that opponent's friends and relations took no further interest in him.

It meant that he was actually annihilated.

Bits of him might be found, but the most of him would be hopelessly scattered.