THE METAPHYSICS OF A PROCESS. 20I 



becoming which does not indicate, however vaguely, 

 something definite happening within fixed Hmits. 

 If, e.g., we say, as vaguely as possible, '* something 

 became something else," we do at least imply that 

 the ill-defined " something " was at least not any- 

 thing and everything else ; for in that case it 

 would have been the "somethinor else," and nothincr 

 would have happened at all, seeing that the "some- 

 thing" was the "something else" already, and so 

 did not have to become it, and thus there would 

 have been no becoming at all, and the original 

 statement would have been false. But if both the 

 "somethings" mean something with a definite 

 though unspecified character, then the becoming 

 is limited, In this case also, by the initial something 

 at the one end and the final something at the 

 other. 



All this may be illustrated by the old and famous 

 example of the Q,gg and the chicken. Supposing 

 we are considering the process of the hatching of 

 the chicken, then the ^gg will represent the fixed 

 starting-point A, and the chicken the fixed end B, 

 and the process will consist In A's becoming B. 

 Now let us suppose per impbssibile that neither A 

 nor B Is fixed, i.e., that no chicken ever results. 

 In that case we may give any name we please to 

 the manipulations to which we subject the ^gg, but 

 the " process " cannot be described as one of 

 " hatching." For the end of the process Is never 

 reached, and we hatch nothing. But now suppose 

 that what we had described by the definite term 

 "Gg'g" was not an ^^^ at all, but, say, a piece of 

 chalk. In that case surely our original description 

 of the process of hatching a chicken out of an ^gg 

 becomes ludicrously false and Inapplicable. If A 



