Naturally these native writers would emphasize that which would glorify their own country and exalt the character of its civilization; belonging to a conquered race--the soreness of the conflict past--they would be but too prone to please, in order to stand in favor with, their conquerors; while their religious zeal would prompt them to find as many analogies as possible between their old faith and the one to which they were converted. All of which would tend to exaggeration in the same general direction as that followed by the early Spanish writers. But because of these tendencies to exaggeration it does not follow that all the works of early Spanish or native writers on America are to be described as of no value or even as of little value. As justly remarked by H. H. Bancroft, "Do we reject all the events of Greek and Roman history, because the historians believed that the sun revolved about the earth, and attributed the ordinary phenomena of nature to the actions of the imaginary gods? * * * And finally, can we reject the statements of able and conscientious men--many of whom devoted their lives to the study of aboriginal character and history, from an honest desire to do the natives good--because they deem themselves bound by their priestly vows and the fear of the inquisition to draw scriptural conclusions from each native tradition? The same remarks apply to the writings of converted and educated natives, influenced, to a great degree, by their teachers; more prone, perhaps, to exaggeration through national pride, but at the same time better acquainted with the native hieroglyphics. To pronounce all these works deliberately executed forgeries, as a few modern writers have done, is too absurd to require refutation." [27] And to this I would add a protest against that spirit of skepticism which in these same modern writers, when they do not pronounce the works referred to by Bancroft as forgeries, insist upon so far discrediting them by their sophistries of criticism that they might as well pronounce them outright forgeries. Undoubtedly the trend of modern writers is in support of the theory both of an indigenous people and civilization for America, and the latter of no very high order. In support of this theory they do not hesitate to discredit most of the native traditions recorded by the earlier writers, which tell of migrations of their ancestors from distant countries; of golden ages of prosperity and peace, and of an ancient, splendid civilization. It is difficult to determine always which is most to be discounted, the writers through whom the traditions of the glorious past are transmitted to us, or those who would dismantle that part of its glory and present us with an ancient America undeveloped beyond the point of middle savagery. Perhaps in this, as in so many other things where man's prejudices are involved, the truth will be found at about an equal distance between the two extremes; and