DECISIONS OF PRINCIPLE

4.3.5 It is hardly necessary to point out that principles of driving, like other
principles, are normally not inculcated by their verbal repetition, but by
example, demonstration, and other practical means. We learn to drive, not by
precept, but by being shown how to do particular bits of driving; the precepts
are usually only explanatory or mnemonic of what we are being shown.
Thereafter, we try to do the particular manoeuvres ourselves, and are criticized
for failures, commended when we do them well, and so gradually get the hang
of the various principles of good driving. For although our instruction is far from
being purely verbal, nevertheless what we are being taught are principles. The
fact that the derivation of particular acts (or commands to do them) from
principles is normally done non-verbally does not show that it is not a logical
process, any more than the inference:
The clock has just struck seven times
The clock strikes seven times at seven o'clock only
It is just after seven o'clock
is shown to be non-logical because it is never made explicitly in words.
Drivers often know just what to do in a certain situation without being able to
enunciate in words the principle on which they act. This is a very common state
of affairs with all kinds of principles. Trappers know just where to set their traps,
but often cannot explain just why they have put a trap in a particular place. We
all know hnw to use words to convey our meaning; but if a logician presses us
for the exact definition of a word we have used, or the exact rules for its use, we
are often at a loss. This does not mean that the setting of traps or the use of
words or the driving of cars does not proceed according to principles. One may
know how, without being able to say how -- though if a skill is to be taught, it is
easier if we can say how.