Of all the offspring of Time, Error is the most ancient, and is so old and familiar an acquaintance, that Truth, when discovered, comes upon most of us like an intruder, and meets the intruder's welcome. We all pay an involuntary homage to antiquity. ... To the great majority of mortal eyes, Time sanctifies everything that he does not destroy.
-- Charles Mackay, Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions, Volume 1 (London: 1841), p. 314.
