Francis Bacon, Novum Organum 1.56:
One can find some minds steeped in admiration for antiquity, and others in an embrace of the new. There are, however, few minds of the sort that can maintain the moderation either to avoid carping at those things which the ancients handled correctly or scorning those things which are rightly handled by the moderns. This happens to the detriment of philosophy and the sciences, since they constitute rather studies of antiquity and modernity rather than real judgments. The truth, however, is to be sought not from some accident of a particular time, which is a fickle thing, but from the light of nature and experience, which is eternal. And so, those studies are to be rejected, and we must see to it that our understanding is not violently driven to assent by them.
Reperiuntur ingenia alia in admirationem antiquitatis, alia in amorem et amplexum novitatis effusa; pauca vero ejus temperamenti sunt, ut modum tenere possint, quin aut quae recte posita sunt ab antiquis convellant, aut ea contemnant quae recte afferuntur a novis. Hoc vero magno scientiarum et philosophiae detrimento fit, quum studia potius sint antiquitatis et novitatis, quam judicia: veritas autem non a felicitate temporis alicujus, quae res varia est; sed a lumine naturae et experientiae, quod aeternum est, petenda est. Itaque abneganda sunt ista studia; et videndum, ne intellectus ab illis ad consensum abripiatur.
