(1) Oral testimony depends upon the character of the witness; and the best witness is not perfectly trustworthy; for he may not have observed accurately, or he may not have reported correctly; especially if some time elapsed between the event and his account of it; for no man's memory is perfect. Since witnesses vary widely in capacity and integrity, we must ask concerning any one of them--was he a good judge of what he saw, and of what was really important in the event? Had he good opportunities of knowing the circumstances? Had he any interest in the event--personal, or partisan, or patriotic? Such interests would colour his report; and so would the love of telling a dramatic story, if that was a weakness of his. Nay, a love of truth might lead him to modify the report of what he remembered if--as he remembered it--the matter seemed not quite credible. We must also bear in mind that, for want of training, precision in speaking the truth is not understood or appreciated by many honest people even now, still less in unscientific ages. Oral tradition is formed by passing a report from one to another, generation by generation; and it is generally true that such a tradition loses credit at every step, because every narrator has some weakness. However, the value of tradition depends upon the motives people have to report correctly, and on the form of the communication, and on whether monuments survive in connection with the story. Amongst the things best remembered are religious and magic formulæ, heroic poems, lists of ancestors, popular legends about deeply impressive events, such as migrations, conquests, famines, plagues. We are apt now to underrate the value of tradition, because the use of writing has made tradition less important, and therefore less pains are taken to preserve it. In the middle of last century, it was usual (and then quite justifiable) to depreciate oral tradition as nearly worthless; but the spread of archæological and anthropological research, and the growth of the Comparative Method, have given new significance to legends and traditions which, merely by themselves, could not deserve the slightest confidence.