But in strict theory the two are quite different, since the denial introduces an element of unverifiable dogma which is wholly absent when we merely refrain from the assertion.
It is a bold prophecy, but who can doubt that all improbable and unverifiable traditional knowledge of all kinds will make way for the established facts of science and history when these last reach it in their onward movement?
Not that the concrete, empirical phenomenon loses in worth, much less that unverifiable “metaphysical” entities are impertinently introduced; but that our aim is the discovery of a process of actions in its adaptations to circumstance.
Miracles, whether they are true or not, are at all events unverifiable, and no creed that claims to depend upon the acceptance of unverifiable events can have any vitality.
Whenever that law conflicts with religious assumptions, which in any case cannot be proved to be more than subjective assumptions, the unverifiable theory must go down before the verifiable.
It might mean that, could my friend be made to think as I do, he would be happier than he is at present; but we have here an impossible hypothesis, and an unverifiable conclusion.
The dogmatism of denial it has left as it found it, an unverified and unverifiable assertion.
One value of unverifiable and irrefutable hypotheses of this type lies, then, in the sort of empirical inquiries which they initiate, inspire, organize and guide.
But then, it will be said, these unverifiable principles are absolutely devoid of any significance; experiment can not contradict them; but they can teach us nothing useful; then what is the use of studying dynamics?
Unverifiable and irrefutable hypotheses in science are indeed, in general, indispensable aids to the organization and to the guidance of our interpretation of experience.
No, since this definition is negative, since it is unverifiable by experiment, and consequently can not be regarded as an immediate datum of intuition.
As it is, the only result of these unverifiable hypotheses is to raise up confirmatory documents in a quarter where apologists have not hitherto claimed them.
Memory, testimony, inference so far as unverifiable are imagination.
In the latter case, we mean that he fails adequately to conceive the events he treats of; in the former, that he embellishes or distorts them with unverifiable representations.
It should be said that Professor Hyslop has perhaps overestimated the number of false and unverifiable incidents.
And besides, the incidents of a transcendental and consequently unverifiable nature might have been omitted from these tables.
Many incidents or factors classed as false or unverifiable have been later found to be exact.
Again there is a good deal of unverifiable matter, which whether absurd or not I prefer not to suppress; my reasons are indicated in Chapters xii and xvi Part II, and xi Part III.
This is a long record, because I took verbatim notes, but I propose to inflict it all upon the reader, in accordance with promise to report unverifiable and possibly absurd matter, just as it comes, and even to encourage it.
This may as well be reported almost in full, in spite of unimportant and introductory portions, since it seems fairer to give the context, especially of unverifiable matter.
