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Inference   /ˈɪnfərəns/   Listen
Inference

noun
1.
The reasoning involved in drawing a conclusion or making a logical judgment on the basis of circumstantial evidence and prior conclusions rather than on the basis of direct observation.  Synonym: illation.






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"Inference" Quotes from Famous Books



... not pretended that any clause in the Constitution gives countenance to such a theory. It is altogether rounded upon inference; not from any language contained in the instrument itself, but from the sovereign character of the several States by which it was ratified. But is it beyond the power of a State, like an individual, to yield a portion of its sovereign rights to secure the remainder? In the ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Buchanan • James Buchanan

... But there was also a scene which scandalised the editorial conscience and which the young man had promised to rewrite. The idea that Mr. Locket had been so good as to disengage depended for clearness mainly on this scene; so it was easy to see his objection was perverse. This inference was probably a part of the joy in which Peter Baron walked as he carried home a contribution it pleased him to classify as accepted. He walked to work off his excitement and to think in what manner he should reconstruct. He went some distance without settling that point, and then, ...
— Sir Dominick Ferrand • Henry James

... had happened to me instead of to you, and I were in your same situation, here are the things I would consider, and here are the points to which I would give greatest weight." To tell any subject to brace up and be a man is a plain inference that he is not one. To reflect with him on the things which manhood requires is the gentle way toward stirring his self-respect. So doing, a counselor renews his own character. Also worth remembering is that in any man's ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense

... whose work is not to be corrected without a hearty recognition of his superior diligence and exemplary fidelity, gives an account[G] of this first legislative body, though he errs a little in the date by an inference from Rolfe's narrative, which the words ...
— Colonial Records of Virginia • Various

... They sat on the terrace of the Cafe de la Paix, after a very late dinner, and drank bock, and watched the nocturnal life of the boulevard, and talked. Henry gathered—not from any direct statement, but by inference—that Tom must have acquired a position in the art world of Paris. Tom mentioned the Salon as if the Salon were his pocket, and stated casually that there was work of his in the Luxembourg. Strange that the cosmopolitan quality of Tom's reputation—if, in comparison ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett

... would also be a mistake to suppose that the National Assembly, which discussed this matter, was composed of mere wild revolutionists; no inference could be more wide of the fact. Whatever may have been the character of the men who legislated for France afterward, no thoughtful student of history can deny, despite all the arguments and sneers of reactionary ...
— Fiat Money Inflation in France - How It Came, What It Brought, and How It Ended • Andrew Dickson White

... in a newspaper or pamphlet an account of a native throwing himself in the way of a man who was about to shoot a crow; and the person who wrote the account drew an inference, that the bird was an object of worship: but I can with confidence affirm, that so far from dreading to see a crow killed, they are very fond of eating it, and take the following particular method to ensnare that bird: a native will stretch himself on ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins

... or not, but whether it is good that the universe should be, and whether our misfortunes were inevitable in its constitution. Then within a dozen lines he admits that there can be no direct proof either way; we must content ourselves with settling it by means of inference from the perfections of God. Of course, it is clear that in the first place what Rousseau calls the true question consists of two quite distinct questions. Is the universe in its present ordering on the whole good relatively either to men, or to all sentient creatures? ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley

... of goods, and especially of capital, complains of a want of money, commits the same error as if he ascribed a scarcity or absence of grain, when it exists, to a too small number of wagons to carry it, or to the narrowness of country highways. The inference may, indeed, be sometimes well-founded, but certainly only by way of exception; and yet it is generally the first which politico-economical quacks think of in practice.(739) Like all tools or instruments, ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher

... of the compound microscopes which made high powers practical impossibilities; and, above all, when we appreciate the looseness of the ideas which pervaded all scientists as to the necessity of accurate observation in distinction from inference, it is not strange that the last century gave us no knowledge of bacteria beyond the mere fact of the existence of some extremely minute organisms in different decaying materials. Nor did the 19th century add much to this until toward its middle. It is true that the microscope ...
— The Story Of Germ Life • H. W. Conn

... the Virgin, justify the belief that Luke received his information from herself. When we find him assuring his friend Theophilus that he himself had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, the inference is natural that his information was obtained from the most trustworthy sources. There is no reason to doubt that Mary was associated with the Apostles of her Son, and had opportunities of imparting information regarding ...
— Exposition of the Apostles Creed • James Dodds

... correctly. If it is intended to imply that somebody else, having a much slighter acquaintance with the man whose life is to be narrated, would produce a more truthful book, one may be permitted to doubt the validity of the inference. Thousands of facts are known to a man himself with reference to his career, and a multitude of determinant motives, which are not known even to his most intimate friends, still less to the stranger who so often undertakes ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al

... gray, piercing eyes went through her, then swiftly shifted. She was quick to divine from that the inference in his words—he suspected her of flirting with those ruffians, perhaps to escape him through them. That had only been his suspicion—groundless after his swift glance at her. Perhaps unconsciousness of his meaning, a simulated innocence, and ignorance might serve ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey

... they had been blown or thrown out of a window, no doubt. It was suggested that the stamps be returned to Ottawa and that there were moral grounds for such a course on the part of the holders. The description of "printer's waste" seems to be correct and the inference is that the stamps never had been gummed. They belong to that class of curiosities that appeal strongly to the specialist, but which the ordinary collector regards as something apart ...
— The Stamps of Canada • Bertram Poole

... By inference, rather than directly, this life is a tremendous confirmation of the old faith. John Fletcher gained all he had because he believed the Bible just as it stands. He knew from his own experience and from daily intercourse ...
— Fletcher of Madeley • Brigadier Margaret Allen

... he entertained very lax ideas of honest dealing and fairness and which developed a disregard of the obligations and requirements of his position as an officer in the Navy. He was given abundant opportunity to meet and explain every damaging allegation and every adverse inference arising from the evidence, and his claim, not without foundation it appeared, that the charges against him were instigated by malice was doubtless ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland

... between a conductor and a nonconductor, it is, perhaps, not always so (1453.). When this particle has acquired its maximum tension, then the whole barrier of resistance is broken down in the line or lines of inductive action originating at it, and disruptive discharge occurs (1370.): and such an inference, drawn as it is from the theory, seems to me in accordance with Mr. Harris's facts and conclusions respecting the resistance of the atmosphere, namely, that it is not really greater at any one discharging distance ...
— Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1 • Michael Faraday

... fulfilled it. The preacher in question—an amateur, so Ferrand told him—had an original method of distributing the funds that he obtained. To male sheep he gave nothing, to ugly female sheep a very little, to pretty female sheep the rest. Ferrand hazarded an inference, but he was a foreigner. The Englishman preferred to look upon the preacher as guided by a purely abstract love of beauty. His eloquence, at any rate, was unquestionable, and Shelton ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... know it any more than you; but I drew the inference of her tastes from her character. She is excitable,—even passionate; but her formal training has allowed no scope for either trait, and suppression has but concentrated them. She really pines for some excitement;—what, then, could be more natural than that her fancy ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various

... certain basket of peaches, a rare vegetable, little known to boarding-houses, was on its way to me via this unlettered Johannes. He appropriated the three that remained in the basket, remarking that there was just one apiece for him. I convinced him that his practical inference was hasty and illogical, but in the mean time ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... given later on. At the present day, Lane tells us, the numerical value of the letters in the names of the two parties to the contract are added for each name separately, and one of the totals is subtracted from the other. If the remainder is uneven, the inference drawn is favorable; but if even, the reverse. The pursuit of Gematria is apparently not limited to Jews. Such methods, however, hardly illustrate my present point, for the identity of the couple is not discovered by the process. ...
— The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams

... explanation given of the cause of ordinary spectroscopic binaries, and of irregular proper motions of Sirius and Procyon, leads to the inference that if ever the plane of such a binary orbit were edge-on to us there ought to be an eclipse of the luminous partner whenever the non-luminous one is interposed between us. This should give rise either to intermittence in the star's light or else to variability. ...
— History of Astronomy • George Forbes

... and at once, and maintained a perfectly even flow of comment, reflection, anecdote, reminiscence, and sudden, flashing turns of inference. He seemed always to be searching after general principles, cosmic laws, and to be always jumping at them, testing them, finding them not comprehensive enough, and letting them drift behind him as he pursued his search. She remarked on this afterwards to Lady Maria, who said that ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett

... the Morning Sweeper.—This is rather a knowing subject, one, at least, who is capable of drawing an inference from certain facts. There are numerous lines of route, both north and south of the great centres of commerce, and all converging towards the city as their nucleus, which are traversed, morning and evening, for two or three consecutive ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 437 - Volume 17, New Series, May 15, 1852 • Various

... from more ordinary youth, so that for our purposes they are only the latter, writ large because superior minds only utter what all more inwardly feel. The arrangement by nationality which follows gives no yet adequate basis for inference unless it be the above ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall

... stronger Conjectures and more rational Conclusions from that he sees, I will not deny; and that which he most outdoes us in is, that he sees more to conclude from than we can, but I am satisfied he knows nothing of Futurity more than we can see by Observation and Inference; nor, for Example, did he know whether God would repeople the World ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe

... the Constitution has a "distinctness entirely French, in happy contrast to the complicated language of the English laws." Yet on account of the elementary character of the article of the Constitution on the powers of the President, there is room for inference, a chance for development, and an opportunity for a strong man to imprint his character upon the office. The Convention, writes Mr. Bryce, made its executive a George III "shorn of a part of his prerogative," his influence and dignity ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes

... satisfy his mind, if the fathers of the Church were of the same opinion. From this my critic argues, not with dialectic art, but with rascally cunning, that I suggest that this Confession which we now practise was not instituted by Christ, but by the leaders of the Church. Such an inference might appear sound, were not Christ one of the Primates of the Church, since according to Peter's saying He is Chief Shepherd, and according to the word of the Gospel, Good Shepherd. Therefore he who speaks of princes of the Church, does not exclude Christ, but includes Him along with the Apostles, ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus

... this subject, and it is remarkable that four separate versions exist to-day which, without being copies of one another, are so closely related that the existence of a common original is a legitimate inference. That this was by Bellini is more than probable, for the different versions are clearly by different painters of his school. By far the finest is the example which Crowe and Cavalcaselle and Morelli unhesitatingly ascribe to the young Giorgione; ...
— Giorgione • Herbert Cook

... of the word be correct, the inference would rather be that "Lovecope" was a tax for the goodwill of the port at which a merchant vessel might arrive; a "port duty" in fact, independent of "lastage" &c., chargeable upon every trader that entered the port, whatever her cargo might be. And the immunities ...
— Notes and Queries 1850.04.06 • Various

... you going to heaven yet. I have the best hopes of you both, with your proud distinctions—a pair of half-fledged eaglets. Now, what is your inference from all you have told me? Put it ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte

... can hear the passionate protest: "Those details are not what I relish in the least. Putting me off with your Woolers and your Allbutts! If only you had told me about Jane Eyre!" For it turned out that all the time Mary Taylor had been told. The inference was that Mary Taylor, with her fits of caution, could ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair

... of us!" The loyalty of English Jim, who gracefully ignored the inference and fell into the trap, was evident enough. "Of course, we do not always approve of being tired to death, but where our chief considers it necessary, we are content to obey him. In fact, it would not make much difference if we were ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss

... Jahrhundert." (Lange's Gesch. d. Materialismus, i. 303.) But the writer, like most historians of opinion, does not dwell sufficiently on the co-operation of external social conditions with the progress of logical inference.] ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley

... No inference is here intended that the laws provided by the States against false and defamatory publications should not be enforced; he who has time renders a service to public morals and public tranquillity in reforming these abuses by the salutary coercions ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 4) of Volume 1: Thomas Jefferson • Edited by James D. Richardson

... inference is, that if there is no motion, neither is there any mind anywhere, or about anything or ...
— Sophist • Plato

... the people have failed to prove the defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt it is the duty of the court to direct a verdict. In this case, though by inference the testimony points strongly toward the prisoner, there is no direct proof against him and I am accordingly constrained—much as I regret it—to instruct you to return a verdict ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train

... clearly shown. In Ibsen's "Rosmersholm," Rebecca West, occupying a somewhat similar position, is subject to the same ennobling of motive; but the whole drama hinges upon her moral evolution, and nothing is left to inference. ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... this controversy is a matter rather of inference than of direct information. Having been a faithful adherent and official of Oliver through his whole Protectorate, and still holding his official place under Richard's Government, there is little doubt that, if he had been obliged to post himself publicly on either of the two sides, he would ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson

... walked home from the theatre together, he had had no further chance of speaking to her. If they met in the street, she gave him, as Madeleine had foretold of her, a nod and a smile; and from this coolness, he had drawn the foolish inference that she wished to avoid him. Abnormally sensitive, he shrank out of her way. But now, the mad sympathy that had permeated him on the night she had made him her confidant grew up in him again; it swelled out into something monstrous—a gigantic pity that rebounded ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson

... causes, for the prevalence of an opinion or sentiment, then we have a right to conclude that we have mistaken a prejudice for an instinct, or have confounded a false and partial impression with the fair and unavoidable inference from general observation. Mr. Burke said that we ought not to reject every prejudice, but should separate the husk of prejudice from the truth it encloses, and so try to get at the kernel within; and thus far he was right. But he was wrong in insisting that we are to cherish ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt

... complete, it would not have been possible to pronounce, with certainty, upon a single specimen; for individual variations are so numerous in the crania of one and the same race, that one cannot, without laying oneself open to large chances of error, draw any inference from a single fragment of a cranium to the general form of the ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley

... and all the island knew that Code was the only one to return alive. The inference was not hard to deduce, especially as the gale encountered had been one such as the May had lived ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams

... that; that one writer had as much sense, another as much fancy, another as much knowledge of character, another the same depth of passion, and another as great a power of language. This statement is not true; nor is the inference from it well-founded, even if it were. This person does not seem to have been aware that, upon his own shewing, the great distinction of Shakspeare's genius was its virtually including the genius of all the great men ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin

... followed, and it is by its aid that the tree-like system of classification has been established. No one, even long before Darwin's days, ever dreamed of doubting that this system is in reality, what it always has been in name, a natural system. What, then, is the inference we are to draw from it? An evolutionist answers, that it is just such a system as his theory of descent would lead him to expect as a natural system. For this tree-like system is as clear an expression as anything could be of the fact that all species are bound together by the ties of genetic ...
— The Scientific Evidences of Organic Evolution • George John Romanes

... personal answer. He faintly smiled as he passed on, but looked harassed and worn; while she, turning to me, with an exulting face and voice, exclaimed, "Je l'aurai! je l'aurai!" meaning what she had petitioned for—"car . . . tous ces gnraux m'ont demands mon nom!" (191) Could any inference be clearer? ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay

... drowned. Enough has been heard to warrant the inference that the beasts cannot be whipped out of the storm-drenched cages to which menagerie-life and long starvation have attached them, and from the roar of indignation the man of ribbons flies. The noise increases. Men are standing up by hundreds, ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various

... other hand is it not as fair an inference from all the facts, that beyond and deeper than any provisions of the law there is something wrong in society itself; that we must look for the real root of the trouble in the influences which are operating upon our ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1 • Various

... wealth more forcibly expressed than by an old Perthshire shoemaker. "Supposing," said he, "that I had fifty pounds in my pocket at the present moment. What a wild supposition, but good enough for an illustration! What inference would you draw from me having that sum of money? This, namely, that no other person in the universe has the same fifty pounds. The same pair of boots cannot be worn by two persons at the same time. The same guinea cannot be twice spent by the same man. It is different with ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes

... the eyes of two of the knaves—those of diamonds and hearts, more apparent in the old patterns, suggesting the inference that they are blind. This has been made the basis of a card trick, as to which two of the four knaves presenting themselves would be selected as servants. Of course the blind ones would be rejected. A bet is sometimes proposed to the ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz

... afterward left Penelope; but since she was habitually absorbed in worsted work, and it was probably from her that Telemachus got his mean, pettifogging disposition, always anxious about the property and the daily consumption of meat, no inference can be drawn from this already dubious scandal as to the relation between ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot

... of his words drove the tears from her eyes. Still she did not speak, but he saw the inference of her smile. ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer

... The natural inference and expectation should be therefore, that most people of mature years, however much they might approve of other people's mending their ways, or even of mending their own, will be found to limit their effort principally ...
— Heart and Soul • Victor Mapes (AKA Maveric Post)

... inference and allusion rather than by direct information, while Michael, naturally reticent and feeling that his own uneventful affairs could have no interest for anybody, was less communicative. And, indeed, ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson

... profoundly wise, did not convince me, because I thought his inference was not well-grounded. I saw he might well enough engage the attention of the envoys, but I could not imagine how he could beguile the Parliament, who were actually treating with the Court by their deputies sent to Ruel, and who would certainly run madly ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz

... India; and the Tylwyth Teg, in our legends, are described as speaking a language understood by those with whom they conversed. This language they either acquired from their conquerors, or both races must have had a common origin; the latter, probably, being the more reasonable supposition, and by inference, therefore, the Fairies and other nations by whom they were subdued were descended from a common stock, and ages afterwards, by marriage, the Fairies again commingled with other branches of the family from which ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen

... rendering your presence unknown to wildfowl. I have never tried it, having but little faith in cunning nostrums concocted for the taking of either birds or fish; but as he is a gentleman of standing and great experience, I will quote his words from which I drew my inference: ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne

... agreeable contrast; on one wall was Eve's portrait, and opposite it was a painting of the Wierzchownia mansion. Here he toiled unceasingly, creating, always creating. God only created during six days, he added, while he—the inference was left to be drawn. Feeling how requisite it was he should put himself right, in every respect, with the lady of his choice, he made a fresh confession of his religious faith. His Catholicism, he told her, was outwardly of the Bossuet and Bonald ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton

... I noted the loss of those fingers, I was absolutely staggered for a moment. If he had been less agitated than he was, Fenwick would have guessed what I had seen. I need not tell you that when I last saw Fenwick his left hand was as sound as yours or mine. The inference of this is, that Fenwick has fallen under the ban of the same strange vengeance that overtook Van Fort and his wife. There is not the slightest doubt that he discovered the mine, and that he has not yet paid the ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White

... broadcloth, boldly presented himself at George Brenton's front door, and inquired if Miss Breck was at home. It proved to be a fortunate, as well as a bold step. Pedy recognised him at once, and had a kind of a vague prescience as to the object of his visit, or such might have been the inference drawn from the deep crimson which suddenly suffused ...
— The Wedding Guest • T.S. Arthur

... subjective poems there is discernible a note of sadness, as of a drooping spirit unreconciled, after all, to the stress of this earthly existence. This is heard, for example, in 'Longing' and 'The Pilgrim'. But from such sporadic utterances no large inference should be drawn respecting Schiller's mental history. They proceeded from a sick man whose days ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas

... ([Greek: graphe]) to the Philippians, which is in circulation ([Greek: pheromene]) to the present day, has used certain testimonies from the First (former) Epistle of Peter [43:1]. Here again, we might say, is a Judaiser, the very counterpart of Papias. This inference indeed would be partially, though only partially, corrected by the fact that Eusebius in an earlier place [43:2], to illustrate his account of Ignatius, quotes from Polycarp's Epistle a passage in which St Paul's name happens to be ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot

... analysis for its detection, causes it to be overlooked. Accordingly, in a subject like religion, the emotions may secretly insinuate themselves in the preliminary step of determining the weight due to the premises, even where the final process of inference is ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar

... dilapidated buildings in a part of the city, which had once been very poor property, but was beginning to be valuable. This block had much more than maintained the last De Carlos through a long and lazy lifetime, and, as his household consisted only of himself, and an aged and crippled negress, the inference was irresistible that he "had money." Old Charlie, though by alias an "Injin," was plainly a dark white man, about as old as Colonel De Charleu, sunk in the bliss of deep ignorance, shrewd, deaf, and, by ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable

... favour," said the magistrate, making exactly the inference to which Ratcliffe was desirous to lead him, though he mantled his art with an ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... The inference from all these circumstances of course was, that however abruptly he had departed, he had not gone home, but somewhere where food would not be easy to procure in the ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed

... entitled to issue such a commission. He pointed out that the sovereignty had been recognized by France and Spain, and that belligerent rights had been recognized by Prussia and by Russia. Only one of Sir Joseph's charges he admitted to be true,—that he was a Scotchman, but he denied the inference made from it,—that he was a "state criminal." He wrote: "It cannot have escaped the attention of Your High Mightinesses that every man now giving fealty to the cause of American Independence was born a British subject." If he were a "state criminal," then, he argued, ...
— Paul Jones • Hutchins Hapgood

... written upon the subject of medicine, as remedial agents. I will use the word that the theologian often uses when asked whom Christ died for, the answer universally is, ALL. All intelligent medical writers say by word or inference that drugs or drugging is a system of blind guess work, and if we should let our opinions be governed by the marble lambs and other emblems of dead babies found in the cemeteries of the world, we would say that John M. Neal was possibly hung for murder, not through design, but through traditional ...
— Philosophy of Osteopathy • Andrew T. Still

... his fortune on the stage as an actor, and to have failed—not an infrequent case with dramatic authors. He appears to have earned but a precarious subsistence by his pen; although from the little we can glean of his history, the inference is, he was improvident, and easily led away by gay, dissipated companions. One of his biographers gives a melancholy account of the destitution of his latter days, and states, that he was reduced to the necessity of borrowing a shilling, to satisfy the cravings of hunger, from a gentleman, who, ...
— Venice Preserved - A Tragedy in Five Acts • Thomas Otway

... in regard to his slave marriage, his conscience had never been entirely at ease since his departure from the South, and any positive denial of his married condition would have stuck in his throat. The inference naturally drawn from his reticence in regard to the past, coupled with his expressed intention of settling permanently in Groveland, was that he belonged in the ranks of the unmarried, and was therefore legitimate game for any widow or old maid who could ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt

... points of difference are that in D, E (1) a series of northern annals have been incorporated; (2) the Bede entries are taken, not from the brief epitome, but from the main body of the Eccl. Hist. The inference is that, shortly after the compiling of this Alfredian chronicle, a copy of it was sent to some northern monastery, probably Ripon, where it was expanded in the way indicated. Copies of this northernized Chronicle afterwards found their way to the south. The impulse given by ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Part 1, Slice 1 • Various

... and drew an inference, but it did not deter him from another visit to the Obeah woman's house next evening. The old woman was away. Juanita was there alone. Truly, the girl was fair, her eye was merry, she had white teeth ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner

... "Your inference is correct. The Grignons always lodge the priests, and a great man like this one will be ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... Fagan, instead of avoiding the direct road, at the expense of half a mile's additional walk. No persuasion or force will induce a horse raised in the neighborhood to pass the fated spot at night, although he will express no uneasiness by daylight. The inference is, that the animals, as we know animals do, and Balaam's certainly did, see more than their masters. A skeptical gentleman, near, thinks this only the force of habit, and that the innocent creatures have been so taught by the cowards ...
— The Old Bell Of Independence; Or, Philadelphia In 1776 • Henry C. Watson

... it is found that in the case of these later tribes the main body were shepherds and cultivators, and their descendants have the status of good cultivating castes at present, while the leaders became the Rajputs, who have the status of the Kshatriyas; and it therefore seems a reasonable inference that the same had previously been the case with the Aryans themselves. It has been seen that the word Visha or Vaishya signified one of the people or a householder. The name Kunbi appears to have the same sense, its older form being kutumbika, which is a householder ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell

... have been made to fix the situation of it? The latitudes and longitudes of some quite unimportant features of the coast were duly noted. Here was a large bay, and not the slightest reference was made to it in the table. The inevitable inference is that the French saw nothing worth recording between Cape Schanck and Cape Otway. Baudin is corroborated by ...
— Terre Napoleon - A history of French explorations and projects in Australia • Ernest Scott

... Behind the veil of night are sometimes done evil deeds. The snail has been known to start before his time. Laying down these general postulates, I drew therefrom, late in the sultry gloom, this particular inference: Caesar's shallop might possibly breast the deep before dawn; and if Caesar was not on hand, she would carry his fortunes, but not him. Forthwith, groping through the obscurity, I found my fears without foundation. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various

... enclosed in wicker-work or baskets. These customs, it will have been remarked, are generally observed at or about midsummer. From this we may infer that the original rites of which these are the degenerate successors were solemnised at midsummer. This inference harmonises with the conclusion suggested by a general survey of European folk-custom, that the midsummer festival must on the whole have been the most widely diffused and the most solemn of all the yearly festivals celebrated by the primitive Aryans in Europe. At the same time we must bear in mind ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... impressed by Shakspeare's characters. He says of Benedick and Beatrice, as if he had known them personally, that the exclusive direction of their pointed raillery against each other "is a proof of a growing inclination." This is not unlikely; and the same inference would lead us to suppose that this mutual inclination had commenced before the opening of the play. The very first words uttered by Beatrice are an inquiry after Benedick, though expressed ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson

... words thought to himself that his work had gone for nothing, that never in the world would Ursus dare to kill Glaucus, either that night or any other night. But he comforted himself at once by another inference from the teaching of the old man; namely, that neither would Glaucus kill him, though he should discover and ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... invasion and the need for every English citizen to be a soldier. The Lord Chamberlain licensed this play, but refused to license a parody of it. Shortly afterwards he refused to license another play in which the fear of a German invasion was ridiculed. The German press drew the inevitable inference that the Lord Chamberlain was an anti-German alarmist, and that his opinions were a reflection of those prevailing in St. James's Palace. Immediately after this, the Lord Chamberlain licensed the play. Whether the ...
— The Shewing-up of Blanco Posnet • George Bernard Shaw

... has been made by Mr. Aston, who defines an onomatope as "the artistic representation of an inarticulate sound or noise by means of an articulate sound" (394. 333). The author is of opinion that from the analogy of the lower animals the inference is to be drawn that "mankind occupied themselves for a long time with their own natural cries before taking the trouble to imitate for purposes of expression sounds not of their own making" (394. 334). The latter process was gradual and extended over centuries. For the child or the "child-man" ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain

... consider it, it was laid upon the table. This procedure had the effect of virtually rejecting it, in consequence of a stipulation contained in the treaty that its ratifications should be exchanged on or before a day which has already passed. The Executive, acting upon the fair inference that the Senate did not intend its absolute rejection, gave instructions to our minister at Berlin to reopen the negotiation so far as to obtain an extension of time for the exchange of ratifications. I regret, however, to say that his efforts ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson

... present victim, he was happily unconscious of any spectator beyond Bella the house-maid, but he felt relieved to be delivered from her compassionate stare. He had an instinctive sense that she knew as well as he did what he had come there for, and was pitying him—an inference in which he was quite correct. For Bella was older than the unseen "chorus" on the landing, who did not think of pitying him. She had seen more of the world, and was better acquainted with its cares and troubles. She called him in ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler

... these (facts) few as they are, I feel conscious that no certain inference can yet be drawn; though presumptive inferences certainly may, and they seem to me ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various

... from verbal generalisations and unproved assumptions to come down face to face with the realities of experience; that he substituted for formal reasoning, from baseless premises and unmeaning principles, a methodical system of cautious and sifting inference from wide observation and experiment; and that he thus opened the path which modern science thenceforth followed, with its amazing and unexhausted discoveries, and its vast and beneficent practical results. We credit all this to Bacon, and assuredly not without reason. All this is what was ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church

... neighbouring river; but we all concluded at the time, from the extreme dinginess of its coat, that it had lived for years in its dark pool, a hermit apart from its fellows. I am not now, however, altogether certain that the inference was a sound one. Some fishes, like some men, have a wonderful ability of assuming the colours that best suit their interests for the time. I have been unable to determine whether the trout be one of these conformists; but it used to strike me at this period as at ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller

... such a charge, if he chose; he might have said, "I was virtually right, and here is the proof of it," but this he has not done, but on the contrary has professed that he no longer draws from my works, as he did before, the inference of my dishonesty. He says distinctly, p. 26, "When I read these outrages upon common sense, what wonder if I said to myself, 'This man cannot believe what he is saying?' I believe I was wrong." And in p. 31, "I said, This man has no real care for truth. Truth for its own sake ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman

... This inference received a show of confirmation afterward when Whiskers had a private interview with the managing editor, received an order on the cashier for all the money due him, and for a part of the managing editor's salary as a loan, and quietly said to the exchange editor that he would be ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens

... If I remember rightly, the Duke of Argyll has been very emphatic in pointing out the difference between giving local self-government to a community in which the tendencies of popular feeling are "centrifugal," and giving it to one in which these tendencies are "centripetal." The inference to be drawn was, of course, that as long as Ireland disliked the Imperial government the concession of Home Rule would be unsafe, and would only become safe when the Irish people showed somewhat the same sort of affection ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.

... really believe them, or they find in them an apology for their corruption. It has sometimes been said, by way of severe reflection, of a moral sermon, that it could not be the Gospel, for that a Socinian might have heard it without offence. The objection is very absurd; but what then ought to be the inference drawn by the same persons, respecting the character of doctrines which, although in speculation they are fearful and appalling to the utmost, tend in reality to stupify the moral sense, and can be listened to by the profane ...
— On Calvinism • William Hull

... make to his whimsically abrupt bidding. But she did not answer very promptly, even when he had added, "Wanhope, here, is scenting something psychological in the reason of my laughing at you, instead of accepting the plain inference in ...
— Questionable Shapes • William Dean Howells

... external covering as that of the huts. The beds are raised by stones two feet from the ground, and occupy about one third of the apartment at the inner end; and the windows and a part of the roofs had been taken away for the convenience of removing their furniture in the spring. It was a natural inference, from the nature of these habitations, that these people, or at least a portion of them, were constant residents on this spot, which, indeed, seemed admirably calculated to afford in luxurious profusion all that constitutes Esquimaux felicity. This, however, did ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry

... ancestor. Other and more prevalent errors will occur to the reader, these being due to the use of what is called "the evidence of the senses"; and of all criteria the evidence of sensation is perhaps the most faulty. Logical inference from deductive or inductive reasoning has often enough been a good monitor to sense-perception, and has, moreover, pioneered the man of science to correct knowledge on more than one occasion. But as far as we know or can learn from the history ...
— Second Sight - A study of Natural and Induced Clairvoyance • Sepharial

... Later entries in 1754 and 1756 respectively for "building the desk at Alexandria"[123] and "to have seats made for the Church at Alexandria"[124] are puzzling since no mention occurs for any levies or appropriations for building or repairing. The inference would seem that some individual had provided a meeting place for services, though local tradition is firmly entrenched that a Chapel of Ease stood on ...
— Seaport in Virginia - George Washington's Alexandria • Gay Montague Moore

... relation to the hip as well as the manner in which the tarsus functionates during locomotion. That ligamentous injuries owing to sprain frequently occur and attendant periarticular inflammations with subsequent hypertrophic changes follow, is a logical inference. Fibrillary fracture of the collateral ligaments may take place in falls or when animals make violent efforts to maintain their footing on slippery streets. In expressing opinions concerning the frequency ...
— Lameness of the Horse - Veterinary Practitioners' Series, No. 1 • John Victor Lacroix

... our fuddled old peasant guide hanging about for "tea-money," when we bade farewell to my friend Domna, who, with her family, offered us her hand at parting. He was not too thoroughly soaked with "tea" already not to be able to draw the inference that our long stay with the milkwoman indicated pleasure, and he intimated that the introduction fee ought to be in proportion to our enjoyment. We responded so cheerfully to this demand that he immediately discovered the existence of a dozen historical ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood

... could have made her see things with my own eyes—but I could not. She regarded me as an invalid whose health was undermined by a wasting illness and who needed nursing and coddling on the slightest provocation. Instead of drawing Nature's inference that, what cannot live, should die, she clung to the slender thread of life that sometimes threatened to break—but never on these drives. I often told her that, if I could make my living by driving instead of teaching, I should feel the stronger, the healthier, ...
— Over Prairie Trails • Frederick Philip Grove

... Satan cannot but sin, yet he is not coerced to sin. Thus too, of his own powers, natural man is able only to resist grace, yet there is no compulsion involved. The fact, therefore, that natural man cannot but sin and resist grace does not warrant the inference that he is compelled to sin; nor does the fact that natural man is not coerced to resist prove that he is able also to assent to grace. The fact, said Flacius, that the wicked willingly will, think, and do only what pleases ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente

... origin for many of his actions and states of mind. And between these two extremes lie a whole series of gradations. They exist in all stages of culture, and it is difficult to see by what rule of logic or of experience one can say where the normal ends and the abnormal begins. If we assume the inference of the normal person concerning the origin of his mental states to be correct, it seems difficult to deny the possibility of those of the insane person having a similar origin, although distorted by the influence of disease. If, on the ...
— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen

... do, it will be the first time I have failed." He was about to continue, but checked himself. They were getting on dangerous ground. She understood his inference and colored and smiled. For some time neither spoke. A gold leaf, one of the first heralds of autumn, dropped silently down from the bough overhead to the center of the table. He ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown

... in this humorous description. But what is the legitimate inference? that extemporaneous speaking is altogether ridiculous and mischievous? or only that it is an art which requires study and diligence, and which no man should presume to practice, until he ...
— Hints on Extemporaneous Preaching • Henry Ware

... the sum and substance of it. As he dropped out of her world, some one else quite naturally rose to fill the void. That person was Fairfax. The big man had said that she wanted a separation, she wanted to provide a safe haven for Phoebe. The inference was plain. She wanted to get rid of him in order to marry Fairfax. Fairfax had been honest enough to confess that he was acting on his own initiative in proposing the bribe, but there must have been something ...
— What's-His-Name • George Barr McCutcheon

... the real sense of the case, and it follows from this explanation, that no part of the year ever can have the fractional or double date except the interval from January 1 to March 24 inclusively. And hence arises a practical inference, viz, that the very same reason, and no other, which formerly enjoined the use of the compound or fractional date, viz, the prevention of a capital ambiguity or dilemma, now enjoins its omission. For in our day, when the double opening of the year is abolished, what sense is there in perplexing ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey

... but having the stroma hollow and filled with a pulverulent mass. In reality, I think it is a better Camillea, the perithecia arranged the same way, not permanent, but broken up at an early stage. Of course, it is only an inference. Leveille states that it has the spores borne on hyphae (acrogenous), but I do not place much value on Leveille's statements. Patouillard, after admitting that he saw nothing but this powdery mass, adds "it is probable ...
— Synopsis of Some Genera of the Large Pyrenomycetes - Camilla, Thamnomyces, Engleromyces • C. G. Lloyd

... the belief that when that brilliant star emerged in the morning from the rays of the sun, and began to assert its own inherent power, the sympathetic river, moved thereby, commenced to rise. A false inference like this soon dilated into a general doctrine; for if one star could in this way manifest a direct control over the course of terrestrial affairs, why should not another—indeed, why should not all? Moreover, it could not have ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper

... were not unreasonable, but the inference was surely illogical. The special envoys from the republic had not been instructed to treat about the debt. This had been the subject of perpetual negotiation. It was discussed almost every day by the queen's ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... reign of Francis, threatened the unorthodox, and which Margaret, who had more than once warded it off from them, was then powerless to avert. Desperiers, to speak truth, was in far more danger of the stake than most of his friends. The infidelity of Rabelais is a matter of inference only, and some critics (among whom the present writer ranks himself) see in his daring ridicule of existing abuses nothing inconsistent with a perfectly sound, if liberally conditioned, orthodoxy. Desperiers, like Rabelais, was a Lucianist, but his modernising ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. I. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre

... we, as men, happen to be endowed. The senses of force, of motion, of sound, of light, of touch, of heat, of taste, and of smell—these we have, and these are the things we primarily know. All else is inference founded upon these sensations. So the world appears to us. But given other sense-organs, and it might appear quite otherwise. What it is actually and truly like, therefore, is quite and for ever beyond us—so long as ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge

... recorded; only a few remain. The earliest example is from Guernsey in 1563, when Martin Tulouff heard an old witch cry as she bestrode a broomstick, 'Va au nom du diable et luciffer [p] dess[q] roches et espynes.' He then lost sight of her, with the inference that she flew through the air, though he acknowledged that he himself was not so successful.[648] The witches of the Basses-Pyrenees, 1609, anointed themselves before starting, and repeated the words 'Emen hetan, emen hetan', ...
— The Witch-cult in Western Europe - A Study in Anthropology • Margaret Alice Murray

... asserted that the case is the other way. The wider circuit, he tells us, is the older. In the wars of the early days of William, King Henry of France burned Argentan. The burning is undoubted; it is recorded by William of Jumieges. But M. Vimont's inference seems strange—namely, that after this destruction the town was rebuilt, but on a smaller scale. The case would be something like one stage in the history of Perigueux, when only a part of old Vesona was ...
— Sketches of Travel in Normandy and Maine • Edward A. Freeman

... pleasure or of society, and so, in his dreams of scholarship, seizing upon the idea of a long, laborious, erudite, and elegant task; and we can also well imagine Hume, with his love of speculation, turning gratefully to the records of the past for subjects of reflection, analysis, and inference. In these and other notable instances, we feel it is more an accident than an inspiration, more from circumstances than from innate and absolute endowment and impulse, that ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various

... true, and the inference drawn by the ex-colonel was so obvious that, without pausing to discuss the matter, they at once wheeled round and proceeded to retrace their steps. But although each one of them felt convinced that they were really going back again over precisely ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood

... confession of novel-reading there is a sort of inference that he had wasted his time, or else the guilty conscience of the novelist in me imagines such an inference. But however this may be, there is certainly no question concerning the intention of a correspondent who ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... one sermon on this trip, at a place called Good Hope, in the county of Madison, Virginia. But from the spirit of the Diary more than from its direct letter the inference is clear that the name belied the character of the place, and that instead of Good Hope it should be Bad Despair. His subject was Rev. 14:6, "I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline

... to infer from this that Pitt and his cousin looked forward to a time when the monarchs could invade France with safety? Such an inference would be rash. It is more probable that they here found an excuse for postponing their decision and a means of calming an insistent visitor. Certainly they impressed Burke with a belief in their sincere but secret sympathy with the royalist cause. The three ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose



Words linked to "Inference" :   abstract thought, implication, corollary, inferential, entailment, derivation, logical thinking, infer, reasoning, analogy, extrapolation, presumption, deduction



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