No mistake is more to be deplored than the conception that a system of morals and religion should derive any portion of its authority either from the circumstance of its novelty or its antiquity, that it should be judged excellent, not because it is reasonable or true, but because no person has ever thought of it before, or because it has been thought of from the beginning of time.

The Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley in Verse and Prose, Now First Brought Together with Many Pieces Not Before Published (ed. 1880)