t ] 
be as v/ell fuppos'd, taken by different Hands, and, 
prelervM in different Places or Languages. 
And therefore if Oral Tradition by any one Man or 
Conipany oi Men might be fuppos'd to be Credible, 
after Twenty Years, at llths of Certainty 5 or but .iths-^ or 
tths : a Written Tradition may be well imagift'd tocon- 
tinuejby the Joint Copies that may be taken of it for one 
place, (like the feveral Copies of the fame ImprefTion; 
during the fpace of a 100, if not 200 Yearss and to be 
then Credible u\Tjhs of Certainty, or at the Propor- 
tion of a Hundred to One^ And then, feeing ihtt the 
Succeffivc Tranimiffions of this of certainty, will 
not diminilh it to a H,al until it pafles the Sixty ninth 
Hand ; (for it will be near Seventy Years, before the Re- 
bate of Money, at thatlntereftj will fink it to half:) 
It is plain, that written Tradition, ifprefervM but by a 
fingle Succeffion of Copies, will not lofehalfof its full 
Certainty, until Seventy times a Hundred (if not two 
Hundred) Years are paft ^ that is, 1 Seven Thoufand, if 
not Fourteen Thoufand Years 5 and further, that, if 
it be likewife pre(erv*d by Concurrent Succeflionsof fuch 
Copies, its Credibility at that Diftance may be even in- 
creased, and grow far more certain from the fevcral a- 
greeing Deliveries at the end of Seventy Succeflions> 
than it would be at the very firft from eitner of the Sin- 
gle Hands, 
(i) Laflly in dating the Proportions of Credibility 
for any Part or Parts of a Copy, it may be obferv'd 5 that 
in anOriginal not very bng, good Odds may be laid by 
A careful Hand, that the Copy fliall not have fo much as 
a Literal Fault : But in one of greater Length, that 
there may be greater Odds againft any Material Error, 
and fuch as (hall alter the Senfe 5 greater yet, that the 
Senfe Aalinotbealter'd in any coniiderable Pointy and 
ftill 
