_ and the _origin_. A
narrative which has taken a definite shape, either as a formula or a
poem, can scarcely be called a tradition. It is a specimen of
composition handed down by tradition, but not a tradition itself. It is
an unwritten record--as much a record in form and nature as a written
document, but differing from a written document in the manner of its
transmission to posterity. Many a good judge believes that the Homeric
poems are older than the art of writing, and, consequently, that they
were handed down to posterity orally. Yet no one would say that the
Iliad and Odyssey were Greek traditions.

The fact of a narrative having taken a permanent form, inasmuch as that
permanent form both facilitates its transmission, and ensures its
integrity, distinguishes an unwritten record from a tradition.

A true account of a real event transmitted from father to son in no set
form of words, but told in a way that a nursery tale is told to
children, or the way in which a piece of evidence is given in a court of
justice, constitutes a tradition; for in this form only is it liable to
those elements of uncertainty which distinguish tradition from
history--elements which we must recognize, if we wish to be precise in
our language.

Such is its _form_, or rather its _want of form_. But this is not
enough. A tradition, to be anything at all, must have a basis in fact,
and represent a real action, either accurately described or but
moderately misrepresented. I say _moderately misrepresented_, because
the absolute transmission of anything beyond a mere list of names, and
dates, without addition, omission, or embellishment, is a practical
impossibility. Hence we must allow for some inaccuracy; just as in
mechanics we must allow for friction. But, allowing for this, we must
still remember that the event and the account of it, are correlative
terms. An opinion--an account of an account--only takes the appearance
of a tradition. It is a _tradition_ so far as it is _handed down_ to
posterity, but it is no tradition with corresponding facts as a basis.

It is generally a theory--a theory, perhaps unconsciously formed, but
still a theory. Certain phenomena, of which there is no historical
explanation, excite the notice of some one less incurious than his
fellows, and he attempts to account for them. On the two opposite coasts
of a sea--for instance--two populations with the same manners and
language, are observed to reside. A migra