With these principles in place and having secured them alongside the fundamental truths of faith that have always been central to my beliefs, I concluded that I was now free to start discarding the remaining opinions I held.
Having thus provided myself with these maxims, and having placed them in reserve along with the truths of Faith, which have ever occupied the first place in my belief, I came to the conclusion that I might with freedom set about ridding myself of what remained of my opinions.