258 THE SCIENCE OF LOGIC 



in religious literature, being dealt with as in the case of miracles) ; 

 (V) the consistency or inconsistency of the contents of the document 

 with other certain works of the supposed author will also help to 

 decide ; and, in regard to manuscripts, (d] the form of the hand 

 writing, modes of contraction, formation of the letters, etc., will 

 often enable us to fix with sufficient accuracy the century, or 

 country, or both, in which the manuscript was written. 



By the integrity of a document we mean its fidelity in re 

 presenting what the author actually wrote. This connotes absence 

 of all later interpolations in the case of original manuscripts; 

 and, furthermore, freedom from copyists errors in the case of 

 copies. Where the original written text is in existence, and 

 known for certain to be such, it is, of course, the best evidence of 

 what the author wished to express. But where, as in the case 

 of all ancient works, we have only copies, and comparatively 

 late copies, these invariably differ more or less among themselves. 

 In all such cases, we aim at re-constituting the original text, or 

 getting as near as possible to the latter, by collating all the best 

 and oldest extant manuscript copies. This is only one of the wide 

 fields of investigation that form the domain of historical criticism. 

 We have set down oral tradition in the third place as a source 

 of historical or moral certitude. About the first beginnings of 

 human institutions we have only oral traditions to rely on. 

 When the art of writing was invented, these began to be com 

 mitted to documents ; and, many centuries later, were embodied 

 in printed literature. Authentic documents can only testify to 

 the existence of an oral tradition down to the date of composition 

 of such documents ; and it is with the value of the oral tradition 

 itself we are concerned here. Now, oral tradition can be a suffi 

 cient motive for moral certitude. It is only, of course, in regard 

 to facts of very great moment to some nation, or section of the 

 human race, or to the race as a whole, that we actually have 

 uninterrupted oral tradition. Again, such tradition can assure 

 us only about the substance of such facts, not about minor details ; 

 in regard to these latter, oral tradition naturally and inevitably 

 fluctuates : the very nature of this mode of narrating and trans 

 mitting knowledge from generation to generation involves 

 imperfections and limitations of this kind. Furthermore, even 

 in regard to the substance of the fact transmitted, the tradition 

 must be not only continuous, reaching back to the fact itself, but 

 also widespread (in a country, or continent, or throughout the 



