drama, the Greek epics,
the Greek histories, or the Greek orations could be forged, a great deal
would be subtracted from the proofs of their antiquity. I do not say
that it would set them aside; because everything of this kind is a
question of degree; but the argument in their favour would be less
exceptionable than it is.

For it cannot be too strongly urged that the preservation of records of
high antiquity, in and of itself, is naturally and essentially
improbable. More than half of the antiquities of the world have
been lost; and this alone gives us the odds against an instance
of survivorship. This has been insisted on by more than one
archaeologist--more cautious and candid than the majority of his
brotherhood. Whoever doubts this should look around him. How few nations
have a literature! How thoroughly is the non-development of a permanent
literature the exception rather than the rule! And, even when records
come into existence, how numerous are the chances against their
preservation. Destruction is the common law: continuance a happy rarity.
For extraordinary phenomena we must have extraordinary proofs.

From the present time to the eleventh century we may trace the native
Welsh literature continuously; but no farther. If any thing be older
than the laws of Hoel Dhu, they must be so by four centuries, with
nothing in the interval. This is the measure of the value of Welsh
evidence to the events of the fifth century. Writers, however, in Latin
existed earlier. Still, this is unsufficient to be conclusive to the
validity of a fact in the fourth. Such a statement must be tested by its
own intrinsic probability. It cannot come before us invested with the
dignity of a historically authenticated event. What this is will soon
appear.

If this be the spirit in which we must scrutinize documentary evidence,
with what eyes must we look upon traditions--traditions wherein the
record, instead of being permanently registered, is transmitted from
mouth to mouth, from father to son, from the old man to the young, from
generation to generation? The mere etymological import of the word will
mislead us. It is not enough for a thing to have been _handed down_ from
father to son. A relic may be so transmitted; indeed, written papers and
printed books are traditions of this kind. Heirlooms of any
sort--whether belonging to a nation or an individual--are such
traditions as these.

In a true tradition we must consider the _form