Common-place books as compendia of book excerpts was a tradition going back to classical times.[1] During the Renaissance, when people began to elevate observation over historical authority, personal notebooks shifted from being collections of quotes to what we now think of as research journals.[2]

John Locke was an obsessive recorder of all manner of observations in notebooks. He emphasized recording spontaneous thoughts and putting complex ideas on paper to facilitate reasoning about them. He was one of the main promoters of the modernist reliance on evidence and argument rather than citation of authorities.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Too-Much-Know-Scholarly-Information/d...

[2] https://www.amazon.com/Notebooks-English-Virtuosi-Modern-Sci...