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thouo-li I remember tlie facts, I liave no recollection of the 

 details. Assuming, therefore, that a man's personal recollec- 

 tions may extend over this interval of time, w e may add to them 

 what he may have learned from his father or his grandfather, 

 and this will bring us a little over the period I have stated. But 

 as few men attain the age of eighty, some abatement must be 

 made from the influence which old men can exercise in pre- 

 serving a traditionary recollection of events. 



I am aware that there are exceptional cases on the other side. 

 I think that I have read that the grandfather of the late 

 Marquess of Lansdovvne had conversed with a person whose 

 father had stood on the same scaffold as King Charles I. It is 

 unquestionable that such prolonged historical recollections 

 occasionally occur ; but they are so few that they can exercise 

 little influence on the transmission of accurate oral traditions. 

 They are, however, valuable in particular instances. Thus 

 Irenseus tells us that as a boy he had heard Polycarp describe 

 things which he had heard from the apostle John, and that his 

 recollection of his interviews with Polycarp was of a most lively 

 character, considerably exceeding in vividness that of many 

 subsequent events. In such cases an accurate traditional trans- 

 mission of events could be extended over 160 years; but we 

 must remember that such cases are extremely rare. Their 

 chief value is when the last link in the chain is himself an 

 author. In this particular case, it affords a singular attestation 

 to the genuineness of St. John^s Gospel, for it is hardly con- 

 ceivable that a man situate as Irenaeus was could have been 

 imposed on by a forgery which had only been in existence ten 

 or fifteen years before he wrote. 



We have the means of estimating in a highly civilized com- 

 munity the period of time within which oral tradition becomes 

 an untrustworthy vehicle of transmitting accurate historical 

 information. The little states of Greece must have formed 

 favourable examples of the power of tradition to transmit 

 accurate historical knowledge. The smallness of the number 

 of the citizens must have imparted to each individual a far 

 livelier interest in political events than is at present felt by 

 the members of modern states. Hence we should expect that 

 traditions of the past would deeply impress themselves on the 

 public recollection. Thucydides tells us that the Athenians of 

 his day, while they possessed a general historic recollection of 

 the tyranny of Pisistratus and his sons, had fallen into a popular 

 error as to some of the material facts. The general belief was 

 that Hipparchus, who was killed by Harmodius and Aristogiton, 

 was the eldest son, and had succeeded his father in the tyranny ; 

 whereas his eldest son and successor was Hippias. Historical 



