confirms the assumption that A exists _in this particular instance._ Or, on the other hand, it may be meant that, assuming A to exist in this particular instance, the observation of B may confirm the generalisation, that B is just the sort of thing which would exist, if A existed. _Either_ the one _or_ the other of these two things is, I think, what is generally assumed, when it is assumed that what we do observe confirms or verifies the assumption that there exists some particular thing which we don't observe. And I am admitting that both these assumptions are true. But neither of them conflicts in any way with the position I am maintaining. What I am maintaining is that no observation of my own perceptions, _by itself,_ can confirm the generalisation that any one of them _is_ just what would occur if another person had a particular feeling. I admit this generalisation to be true; and I admit that my observation of my own perceptions and feelings may give me _reason_ to suppose that _if_ another person has certain perceptions or feelings _he_ will also have certain others. What I deny is that they give me the slightest reason to suppose that the existence of any such feeling or perception in another has any connection with the existence of any perception _of my own_--to suppose that any perception of my own is the sort of thing which would occur _if_ another person had a particular feeling. What therefore, my opponent must affirm is that the observation of a perception of my own _without_ the assumption (which Reid makes) that in that particular instance any feeling or perception of another person, of any kind whatever, has preceded it, may give me reason to suppose that that perception of my own is of a kind which is generally preceded by a particular kind of feeling in another person. And this, I think, is plainly false.