Full Idea
The man who has fed his chicken every day throughout its life at last wrings its neck instead, showing that more refined views as to the uniformity of nature would have been useful to the chicken.
Gist of Idea
Chickens are not very good at induction, and are surprised when their feeder wrings their neck
Source
Bertrand Russell (Problems of Philosophy [1912], Ch. 6)
Book Reference
Russell,Bertrand: 'The Problems of Philosophy' [OUP 1995], p.35
A Reaction
A justly famous illustration of Hume's problem of induction, that a vast amount of evidence could still support a false conclusion. If we say 'the future will be like the past', this depends on understanding what was happening in the past.