them for science.

This use of traditional material for modern purposes is not the only
danger to proper definitions. There is also its appearance in the
earlier stages of literature. The traditional narrative, the myth, the
folk-tale or the legend, is not dependent upon the text in which it
appears for the first time. That text, as we have it, was not written
down by contemporary or nearly contemporary authority. Before it had
become a written document it had lived long as oral tradition.[183] In
some cases the written document is itself centuries old, the record
of some early chronicler or some early writer who did not make the
record for tradition's sake. In other cases the written document is
quite modern, the record of a professed lover of tradition. This
unequal method of recording tradition is the main source of the
difficulty in the way of those who cannot accept tradition as a record
of fact. In all cases the test of its value and the interpretation of
its testimony are matters which need special study and examination
before the exact value of each tradition is capable of being
determined. The date when and the circumstances in which a tradition
is first reduced to literary form are important factors in the
evidence as to the credibility of the particular form in which the
tradition is preserved; but they are not all the factors, nor do they
of themselves afford better evidence when they are comparatively
ancient than forms of much later date and of circumstances far
different. It cannot be too often impressed upon the student of
tradition that the tradition itself affords the chief if not the only
sure evidence of its age, its origin, and its meaning; for the
preservation of tradition is due to such varied influences that the
mere fact of preservation, or the particular method or date of
preservation, cannot be relied upon to give the necessary authority
for the authenticity of the tradition. Tradition can never assume the
position of written history, because it does not owe its origin, but
only its preservation, to writing.

Documentary material is examined as to its palaeographical features, as
to the testimony afforded by its author or assumed author, as to its
credibility in dealing with contemporary events or persons, as to its
date, and in other ways according to the nature of the document.
Traditional material has nothing to do with all this. It has no
palaeography; it has no author, and if a personal