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14 books tell of real persons who lived long ago and of what they did. The Book of Genesis tells of the time the furthest back of all, yet the people it speaks of seem as lifelike and act as naturally as our next-door neighbors. Now, you who are studying Greek or Roman history know what absurd tales the Greeks and Romans told of the founders of their nations and the first builders of their cities. They thought they proved themselves greater than the rest of mankind by making their forefathers appear more than human. The Greeks and Romans forgot that time would keep going on, and on, and on, and that other nations would come after them. For the result is that they provoke us who now live, and we say, “How can we tell anything of the beginnings of Greece and Rome, when all we have of their early days is a collection of silly stories?” We have the same vexation with the older peoples who lived before the Greeks and Romans. When some wise man digs