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though I remember the facts, I have no recollection of the 
details. Assuming, therefore, that a man^s personal recollec- 
tions may extend over this interval of time, we 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 Lansdowne 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 
Irenaeus 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 Irenseus 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 
