 Tradition, so conceived, proves to be a legitimate source of authority for the hermeneutical experience of truth. Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics thus comprises a counterpoint to the rejection of the authority of tradition in modern science. Gadamer associates this rejection above all with the “prejudice against prejudice” developed in the European Enlightenment (Gadamer, Truth and Method, 270). In this, the motto of the Enlightenment is that we should think for ourselves, basing our beliefs in our own use of reason and not the authority of tradition, whether this authority is conceived in terms of superstition, religious or aristocratic rule, or custom. Gadamer recognizes that the Enlightenment charge to think for ourselves is legitimate, but he does not believe it follows from this that tradition cannot be a source of truth. He writes,