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 Mango Capac, to Atahualpa, were not of above Five Hundred Years standing. The Mexican Accounts were not much older; and yet these, though very rude, needed Helps to be brought down to us. The Peruan Conveyances of Knowledge, according to Garçilasso de la Vega, were not purely Traditionary, but were Fringes of Cotton, of several Colours, tied and woven with a vast Variety of Knots, which had all determinate Meanings; and so supplied the Use of Letters, in a tolerable Degree: And the Mexican Antiquities were preserved, after a sort, by Pictures; of which we have a Specimen in Purchas's Pilgrim. So that when Sir William Temple urges the Traditions of these People, to prove that Knowledge may be conveyed to Posterity without Letters, he proves only what is not disputed, namely, That Knowledge can be imperfectly conveyed to Posterity without Letters; not that Tradition can preserve Learning as well as Books, or something equivalent.

But since Sir William Temple lays no great Weight upon this Evasion, I ought not to insist any longer upon it. He says (m) therefore, That it is a Question, whether the Invention of Printing has multiplied Books, or only the Copies of