You and I consider it
to be a 'clock,' altho no one of us has seen the hidden works that
make it one. We let our notion pass for true without attempting to
verify. If truths mean verification-process essentially, ought we
then to call such unverified truths as this abortive? No, for they
form the overwhelmingly large number of the truths we live by.
Indirect as well as direct verifications pass muster. Where
circumstantial evidence is sufficient, we can go without eye-
witnessing. Just as we here assume Japan to exist without ever
having been there, because it WORKS to do so, everything we know
conspiring with the belief, and nothing interfering, so we assume
that thing to be a clock. We USE it as a clock, regulating the
length of our lecture by it. The verification of the assumption here
means its leading to no frustration or contradiction. VerifiABILITY
of wheels and weights and pendulum is as good as verification. For
one truth-process completed there are a million in our lives that
function in this state of nascency. They turn us TOWARDS direct
verification; lead us into the SURROUNDINGS of the objects they
envisage; and then, if everything runs on harmoniously, we are so
sure that verification is possible that we omit it, and are usually
justified by all that happens.
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