I assume, then, that objects having all the characteristics which hens' eggs have (whatever these may be) are generally laid by hens (whatever hens may be); and I assume that, if we have any reason for this generalisation at all, observation gives us some reason for it. But now, let us suppose that the only observations we had made were those which we should commonly describe by saying that we had seen a hen laying an egg. I do not say that any number of such observations, by themselves, would be _sufficient_ to justify our generalisation: I think it is plain that they would not. But let us suppose, for the moment, that we had observed nothing else which bore upon the connection between hens and eggs; and that, if therefore our generalisation was justified by any observations at all, it was justified by these. We are supposing, then, that the observations which we describe as "seeing hens lay eggs" give some reason for the generalisation that eggs of that kind are generally laid by hens. And if these observations give reason for this, obviously _in a sense_ they give reason for the generalisation that the existence of such an egg is generally preceded by that of a hen; and hence also, they give us reason to suppose that if such an egg exists, a hen has probably existed also--that unless a hen had existed, the egg would not have existed. But the point to which I wish to call attention is that it is _only_ in a limited sense that they do give reason for this. They only give us reason to suppose that, for each egg, there has existed a hen, which was at some time _near_ the place where the egg in question then was, and which existed at a time _near_ to that at which the egg began to exist. The only kind of hens, whose existence they do give us reason to suppose, are hens, of which each was at some time in spatial and temporal proximity (or, if Idealists prefer, in the relations which are the "intelligible counterparts" of these) to an egg. They give us no information at all about the existence of hens (if there are any) which never came within a thousand miles of an egg, or which were dead a thousand years before any egg existed. That is to say, they _do_ give us reason to suppose that, if a particular egg exists, there has probably existed a hen which was at some time _near_ that egg; but they give us no reason to suppose that, if a particular egg exists, there must have existed a hen which never came near that egg. They _do_ give us reason to suppose that, for each egg, there has probably existed a hen which at some time stood to the egg in question in that relation which we have observed to hold between an egg and a hen, when we observed the hen laying an egg. But they give us no reason to infer from the existence of an egg any other kind of hen: any hen which _never_ stood to the egg in the relation in which we have observed that some hens do stand to eggs.