12. Because we often proceed upon wrong principles.
IV. The mind, by proceeding upon false principles, is often
engaged in absurdities and difficulties, brought into straits and contradictions, without knowing how to free itself:
and in that case it is in vain to implore the help of reason, unless it be to discover the falsehood and reject the
influence of those wrong principles. Reason is so far from clearing the difficulties which the building upon false
foundations brings a man into, that if he will pursue it, it entangles him the more, and engages him deeper in
perplexities.
