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Inference   Listen
noun
Inference  n.  
1.
The act or process of inferring by deduction or induction. "Though it may chance to be right in the conclusions, it is yet unjust and mistaken in the method of inference."
2.
That which inferred; a truth or proposition drawn from another which is admitted or supposed to be true; a conclusion; a deduction. "These inferences, or conclusions, are the effects of reasoning, and the three propositions, taken all together, are called syllogism, or argument."
Synonyms: Conclusion; deduction; consequence. Inference, Conclusion. An inference is literally that which is brought in; and hence, a deduction or induction from premises, something which follows as certainly or probably true. A conclusion is stronger than an inference; it shuts us up to the result, and terminates inquiry. We infer what is particular or probable; we conclude what is certain. In a chain of reasoning we have many inferences, which lead to the ultimate conclusion. "An inference is a proposition which is perceived to be true, because of its connection with some known fact." "When something is simply affirmed to be true, it is called a proposition; after it has been found to be true by several reasons or arguments, it is called a conclusion."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Inference" Quotes from Famous Books



... the simpleton, psychologically. The tale says for the king, because the female symbols, carpet, ring, the king desires for himself, in so many words, and the inference is that the woman also belongs to him. The conclusion of the tale, however, turns out true to the psychological situation, as it does away with the king and lets the simpleton live on, apparently with the same woman. It is clear as ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer

... of propriety for my silence until now as to the divergence of judgment, the differences of opinion and the consequent breach in the relations between President Wilson and myself. They have been the subject of speculation and inference which have left uncertain the true record. The time has come when a frank account of our differences can be given publicity without a charge being made of disloyalty to ...
— The Peace Negotiations • Robert Lansing

... had never even thought of Aristotle, they were yet all accurately written according to his rules. This was no easy task, and he was obliged to have recourse to all manner of forced explanations. If he had been able to establish his case satisfactorily, it would but lead to the inference that the rules of Aristotle must be very loose and indeterminate, if works so dissimilar in spirit and form, as the tragedies of the Greeks and those of Corneille are yet ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black

... across it. This area is doubtless the one measured in 1776, by Padre Font, whose description, was copied by later writers, and whose measurements were applied by Humboldt and others to the ruin itself. Font gave his measurements as those of a circumscribing wall, and his inference has been adopted by many, in fact most, later writers. A circumscribing wall is an anomalous feature, in the experience of the writer, and a close inspection of the general map will show that Font's inference is hardly justified by the condition ...
— Casa Grande Ruin • Cosmos Mindeleff

... her way clear to comment either upon the fact or the inference. There were times when she did not understand Glover, and this was one of the times. He had queer twistical ways of reasoning which often proved the contrary of what he seemed to want to prove; and she had concluded that he was a dark-minded man who did not always know what he was driving at; at ...
— Overland • John William De Forest

... misunderstood. The lesson of her own youth had not been applied; not even of those long hours and days and weeks at which she hinted when she had spoken of the tragedy of life which by inference was her own tragedy: 'to love and to be helpless. To wait, and wait, and wait, ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker

... duplicate of each such object is thereby placed at the service of the ghost of the dead man. This, it might be argued, shows that he attributes to each such inert material object a soul, whose relation to the object is analogous to that of the human soul to the body. But such an inference, we think, would not be justified. As with the Homeric Greeks, the principle of intelligence and life is not to be altogether identified with the ghost, or shade, or shadowy duplicate of the human form that ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall

... crabbed old thing, so the inference is fair that she is miserable. In fact, I do not see how ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell

... identification of hundreds of bodies strengthens the inference that the proportion of the dead to the living is appalling. It is argued that the friends who might identify these unclaimed bodies are themselves ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker

... 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. Whether ...
— The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams

... Gellius, Zenobius, Hephaestion, Clement of Alexandria, and various grammarians or scholiasts. Ammianus Marcellinus (xxv. 4) says that the emperor Julian enjoyed reading Bacchylides. It is clear, then, that this poet continued to be popular during at least the first four centuries of our era. No inference adverse to his repute can fairly be drawn from the fact that no mention of him occurs in the extant work of any Attic writer. The only definite estimate of him by an ancient critic occurs in the treatise [Greek: Peri Hupsous] commonly translated "On the Sublime," ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various

... know that the signature (like that on Florio's Montaigne, in the British Museum) has been detected as a forgery; nor do I know that Shakespeare's not specially mentioning his books proves that he had none. Lawyers appear to differ as to this inference: both Mr. Elton and Mr. Greenwood seem equally confident. {175b} But if it were perfectly natural that the actor, Shakspere, should have no books, then he certainly made no effort, by the local colour of owning a few volumes, ...
— Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown • Andrew Lang

... evidence for it, but because there are many potent presumptions against it. It is not built upon the facts of our consciousness and present experience, but is resolutely constructed in defiance of them by an arbitrary process of assumption and inference; for since God's perfections are as absolute now as they ever can be, and he now permits sin and misery, there is no impossibility that they will be permitted for a season hereafter. If they are necessary ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... was set both in speaking and writing on a command of an abundance of general truths or commonplaces, and even at school boys were trained to commit them to memory, to expand them, and illustrate them from history.'[57] Finally they were taught to write verse. Such at least is a legitimate inference from the extraordinary precocity shown by many Roman authors.[58] This literary training contained much that was of great value, but it also had grave disadvantages. There seems in the first place to have been too much 'spoon-feeding', and too little genuine brain exercise ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler

... not to expose himself to the chance of being for a moment supposed to be connected with either of them) to ascertain their various arrangements, from what had met his observation, he had been enabled to form a very correct inference as to the general progress of affairs. He had beheld the proceedings of each array while under cover, and contending with one another, to much the same advantage as the spectator who surveys the game in which two persons are at play. ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms

... in reading PROFESSOR DE MORGAN'S article on the above subject, what inference is to be drawn from it. If it is to prove a private marriage between Halifax and Mrs. Barton, on the strength of the date on the watch at the Royal Society being falsified, it is a failure. I have examined ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 216, December 17, 1853 • Various

... Shannon, received as much as 45,000 pounds sterling in "compensation" for their loss of patronage; while proprietors of single seats received 15,000 pounds. That the majority was avowedly purchased, in both Houses, is no longer matter of inference, nay, that some of them were purchased twice over is now well known. Lord Carysfort, an active partisan of the measure, writing in February, 1800, to his friend the Marquis of Buckingham, frankly says: "The majority, which has been bought at an enormous price, must be bought over again, perhaps ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee

... such thoughts came to you. But you have some definite idea in your mind and, if my inference is correct, it would cause me pain. You wished to ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... with "reconstruction"? It is the office of the President, it seems, to reconstruct States; the duty of Congress is confined to accepting, placidly, the results of his work. Such is the only logical inference from Mr. Johnson's last position. And thus a man, who was intended by the people who voted for him to have no other connection with reconstruction than what a casting vote in the Senate might possibly give him, has taken ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various

... statement of the projection theory just cited, the acceptance of which as an exclusive doctrine would involve the virtual rejection of our right, as scientific men, to rely on the principle that the evidence afforded by logical presuppositions and logical inference is as cogent as that ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10

... forward and one backward. It happened that the first tracks found belonged to the latter class; and they very naturally gave rise to the idea that these impressions were made by birds, on account of this formation of the foot. This, however, is a mere inference; and since the inductive method is the only true one in science, it seems to me that we should turn to the facts we have in our possession for the explanation of these mysterious footprints, rather than endeavor to supply by ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... visible form is a grosser manifestation. This primordial substance is a philosophical necessity, and we can only picture it to ourselves as something infinitely finer than the atoms which are themselves a philosophical inference of physical science: still, for want of a better word, we may conveniently speak of this primary intelligence inherent in the very substance of things as the Atomic Intelligence. The term may, perhaps, ...
— The Edinburgh Lectures on Mental Science • Thomas Troward

... thistles. The chapter "on the signatures of the Masters," will be found useful to collectors. He says that where there is a false signature it is removed by spirits of wine, and that is the proof that it is false. He does not draw the inference, that as spirits of wine destroy the one vehicle and not the other, the old and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various

... written early in the reign of Trajan (which commenced A.U.C. 851. A.D. 98), consequently about the same time with the Germania, though perhaps somewhat later (cf. notes on Germania). This date is established by inference from the author's own language in the 3d and the 44th sections (see notes). In the former, he speaks of the dawn of a better day, which opened indeed with the reign of Nerva, but which is now brightening ...
— Germania and Agricola • Caius Cornelius Tacitus

... formulated more than forty years ago by Spencer, Tyndall, Huxley, Haeckel, and others, and has not been seriously attacked in the interval, but, on the contrary, generally accepted as a legitimate inference from the facts ascertained and the theory of the evolution or gradual development of what we call the ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester

... of these "ancient originals'' is not stated, nor is there any mention of the language in which they were composed; Montalvo's silence on the latter point might be taken to imply that they were in Castilian, but any such inference would be hazardous. Three hooks of Areadis de Gaula are mentioned by Pero Ferrus who was living in 1379, and there is evidence that the romance was current in Castile more than a quarter of a century earlier; ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... which I could draw a useful deduction was that, at the time of Barber's arrival in the estuary, he was very ill and weak, yet despite his feeble condition he was able to reach certain trees, the fruit of which restored him to health. Now, from that fact I deduced the inference that the particular fruit-trees to which Barber owed his restoration must of necessity be at no great distance from the beach, otherwise the man would not have had strength to reach them; hence, to find the spot at or near which Barber landed, ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood

... alterations in the apparatus as the English, French, and Russians had to do more than once." This early adoption of a comprehensive view on protection by Germany is a testimony to both German thoroughness and their definite intention to proceed with a vigorous chemical war. The latter is not mere inference, for it is borne out by the dates at which they commenced production in their dye factories. Further, even if the German cartridge mask was only decided upon after Loos, which is not probable, our feeble reply in that battle would hardly have justified ...
— by Victor LeFebure • J. Walker McSpadden

... accuracy of Dzierzon's statements on this subject, and chiefly because of his having hazarded the unfortunate conjecture that the place of the poison bag in the worker, is occupied in the Queen, by the spermatheca. Now this is so completely contrary to fact, that it was a very natural inference that this acute and thoroughly honest observer, made no microscopic dissections of the insects which he examined. I consider myself peculiarly fortunate in having enjoyed the benefit of the labors of a Naturalist, so celebrated ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth

... have been carefully introduced, in order to prevent any misunderstanding of the motive which induced the Legislature to pass the law, and places it distinctly upon the interest and convenience of the white population—excluding the inference that it might have been intended in any degree for the ...
— Report of the Decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, and the Opinions of the Judges Thereof, in the Case of Dred Scott versus John F.A. Sandford • Benjamin C. Howard

... to this, I am quite satisfied that a very material increase in the produce will be seen; indeed, I may say that on this depends the chief difference of 11/4 lb. and 11 lbs. per tree; for I consider it a very fair inference, that the average obtained here can be realised in any other place in this island, and to any extent, under the same circumstances of light and air, unless on very poor soil, of which we ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds

... venture he was about to undertake; that he warned Waterhouse against mentioning the matter outside the family circle, "for there is treason in the very name"; and that he was himself a man distinguished by dash and daring, who was very anxious to make a substantial sum and return to England soon. The inference from his language and circumstances as to the scheme he had in ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott

... Now she led Mrs. Fletcher to converse with native candour on this subject, and in the course of the evening, which they spent alone, all the town's gossip since Miriam's going abroad was gradually reported. Mrs. Fletcher was careful to prevent the inference (which would have been substantially correct) that she herself had been the source of such rumours as had set wagging the tongues of dissident Bartles; she spoke with much show of reluctance, and many protestations of the ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing

... of his Polish majesty to declare himself until the king of Prussia should be attacked, and his forces divided; and that this scruple was admitted by the allies of Saxony. From these premises he deduced this inference, that the court of Dresden, without having acceded in form to the treaty of Petersburgh, was not less an accomplice in the dangerous designs which the court of Vienna had grounded upon this treaty; and that having been ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... slightly and they were stationary, directly above a large seacoast city. A city of great beauty it was, and its buildings were of the same octagonal shape as were those of Theros! There could be but one inference—the Theronians were direct descendants of those inhabitants ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various

... preserved at Beaumanor, until lately the seat of Sir William's descendants, in which the poet asks sometimes for payment of a quarterly stipend of L10, sometimes for a formal loan, sometimes for the help of his avuncular Maecenas. It seems a fair inference from this variety of requests that, since Herrick's share of his father's property could hardly have yielded a yearly income of L40, he was allowed to draw on his capital for this sum, but that his uncle and Lady Herrick occasionally made him small ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick

... of express information, the most natural inference is that the reason you refuse to entertain the principle in question, is because you show the backward tendency of indiscriminate variability [to be] inadequate to contend with the conservative tendency of long inheritance. The converse of this is expressed in the words "That the struggle ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin

... generosity of what he knew to be a genuine and sincere wish to gratify his comrades, he betrayed what he did not intend to have revealed, namely, the conversation that had passed between himself and the Spanish Princesse. Cigarette caught at the inference with the quickness of ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]

... intellect. When the outer angle at the right of the eye is pressed upon, a light appears in the closed eye at the left, not at the right; not at the place touched. This optical illusion, which was known even in Newton's day, this wordless inductive inference, is hereditary and incorrigible; and, on the other hand, the hereditary wordless concept of food can neither be prevented from arising nor be set aside nor be formed otherwise than it was ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer

... fix a time. The time, however, is, I think, at last come; and I promise myself to repose in Kettel-Hall, one of the first nights of the next week. I am afraid my stay with you cannot be long; but what is the inference? We must endeavour to make it chearful. I wish your brother could meet us, that we might go and drink tea with Mr. Wise in a body. I hope he will be at Oxford, or at his nest of British and Saxon antiquities[846]. I shall expect ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell

... circumstances. And it was further related, that, when the maiden grew to ripe womanhood, he abandoned the trade of a buccaneer and made her his wife. The sailor told this story, shrugged his shoulders, looked knowing and mysterious, and left his auditors to draw what inference they pleased. As they had been talking of Captain Allen, the listeners made their own conclusion as to his identity with the buccaneer. True to human nature, in its inclination to believe always the worst of a man, nine out of ten credited the story as applied to the ...
— The Allen House - or Twenty Years Ago and Now • T. S. Arthur

... the inference. There is not another even faintly eligible bachelor in the whole charming place. (Use your own epithet in place of the underlined word. I should rather like to ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann

... illustrated the inference which is borne out by the whole mass of analogous facts. Animal industry manifests a tendency to achieve the essential with a minimum of expenditure; after its own fashion, the insect bears witness to the economy of energy. On the one hand, instinct imposes upon it a craft that is unchangeable in ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre

... escaped observation, that in the foregoing course of argument the conclusion is invariably from experience of the present order of things to the reasonableness or probability of some other system—of a future state. The inference in all cases passes beyond the field of experience; that it does so may be and has been advanced as a conclusive objection against it. See for example a passage in Hume, Works (ed. 1854), iv. 161-162, cf. p. 160, which says, in short, that no argument ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various

... proprietor, and I bowed to the decreer. I craved permission to apply a drop of acid in order to determine certainly whether the material was gypsum or ordinary limestone, but my request was denied. If on the application of acid there had been no effervescence, the inference would be that the specimen was not limestone, the material of which petrifactions are usually composed. But although chemical tests and manipulations were prohibited, there seemed to be no disposition to forbid the use of our eyes—at a respectful distance. And the proprietor ...
— The American Goliah • Anon.

... alone, that a body has extension in length, breadth, and depth, we have reason to conclude that it is a substance, it being absolutely contradictory that nothing should possess extension, we ought to form a similar inference regarding the space which is supposed void, viz., that since there is extension in it ...
— The Principles of Philosophy • Rene Descartes

... to an English lady named Catherine Bruce. His pretensions to royalty are even more plainly acknowledged than before; and in the course of the story the Chevalier Graeme, chamberlain to the Countess d'Albanie, addresses him as "My Prince." The inference is obvious. The Highland hero with the wonderful eyes was the child of the pretender; he espoused an English lady, and the names on the title-page of the book which tells this marvellous history lead us ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous

... of the world knows the force of flattery; but then he knows how, when, and where to give it; he proportions his dose to the constitution of the patient. He flatters by application, by inference, by comparison, by hint, ...
— Widger's Quotations from Chesterfield's Letters to his Son • David Widger

... was a solo on the piano. A round of applause welcomed the player. Ovid looked at the platform for the first time. In the bowing man, with a prematurely bald head and a servile smile, he recognized Mrs. Gallilee's music-master. The inevitable inference followed. His mother might be ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins

... bloodhounds failed and Priam persisted in his invisibility. If a man was an honest man, why should he flee the public gaze, and in the night? There was but a step from the posing of this question to the inevitable inference that Mr. Oxford's line of defence was really too fantastic for credence. Certainly organs of vast circulation, while repeating that, as the action was sub judice, they could say nothing about it, had already tried the action several times in their impartial columns, and they now tried it again, ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett

... evidence of his last inference, Harley of the inflamed face and threatening brow was quick to furnish it. When Prescott came in Harley took another long draught ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler

... admit, however, that transformism may be wrong. Let us suppose that species are proved, by inference or by experiment, to have arisen by a discontinuous process, of which to-day we have no idea. Would the doctrine be affected in so far as it has a special interest or importance for us? Classification would probably remain, in its broad lines. The actual data of embryology would also ...
— Creative Evolution • Henri Bergson

... peculiarly adapted to the vine. If the possessor of a large farm purposes to put several acres in vineyard, he should also aim to select a soil and exposure best suited to his purpose. Two thousand years ago Virgil wrote, "Nor let thy vineyard bend toward the sun when setting." The inference is that the vines should face the east, if possible; and from that day to this, eastern and southern exposures have been found the best. Yet climate modifies even this principle. In the South, I should plant ...
— The Home Acre • E. P. Roe

... is the inference which the author of "Supernatural Religion" draws from these discrepancies? This,—that Justin derived his information from the lost ...
— The Lost Gospel and Its Contents - Or, The Author of "Supernatural Religion" Refuted by Himself • Michael F. Sadler

... the method by induction, which rises to the universal from a comparison of the single and particular, or, as applied in science, from a collection and collation of facts sufficient to form a certainty or high probability. A sound special deduction can be arrived at only by logical inference from true and certain ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume V • John Lord

... she denied his inference. "After all it's over a month since the engagement was announced, and who knows how much longer before that you and Molly knew about it. No. I'm not one who believes in long engagements. The ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield

... all that you are really conscious of is a sensation, and that something outside of you has produced it. But that all that is outside of me is anything more than the manifestation to me of a power or of God, is an inference and cannot be proven. To constant manifestations of this power, always assuming the same form and characters which can be studied, different names have been given; but that the dust of the street or beat of our heart is anything else ...
— Was Man Created? • Henry A. Mott

... and even the army B, as soon as it extended itself to or beyond the extremity of A, must of necessity turn its columns either to the right or the left, in order to bring them near the enemy's line, and so take him in reverse, as at C, the result being two oblique lines, as shown in Fig. 10. The inference is that one division of the assailing army would take a position perpendicular to the enemy's wing, whilst the remainder of the army would approach in front for the purpose of annoying him; and this would always bring us back ...
— The Art of War • Baron Henri de Jomini

... is primarily as He is revealed in and through the finite world, that is to say as immanent, that God becomes knowable to us; all that is included under His transcendence is of the very highest importance for us—religion would be utterly incomplete without it—but it is an inference we make from His immanence. It is, to give an obvious illustration, only to a transcendent God that we can offer prayer—God {17} over all whom the soul needs, to enter into relations withal; but it is also true that we gain the assurance ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer

... the inference, therefore, as regards pianoforte or violin playing, that the more the familiarity or knowledge of the art, the less is there consciousness of such knowledge; even so far as that there should seem to be almost ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler

... intellectual pioneers, over-seriousness, over-emphasis, dogmatism, and intolerance. Yet it may be said fairly that their chief duty, as with the editorial pages of newspapers, is to be consistently partisan. At least they have proved that the American will take thinking when he can get it. And by inference, one assumes that he will take strong feeling and vigorous truth in his ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby

... nation received their existence from the gradual union of some wandering savages of the Hercynian woods. To assert those savages to have been the spontaneous production of the earth which they inhabited would be a rash inference, condemned by ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon

... worthy of her attention came to the court, they should have no cause to complain of her reception of them. Her language on the subject is so measured and careful as to lead us almost inevitably to the inference that the reports which had excited such dissatisfaction at Vienna were not without foundation, but that the French gayety, even if often descending to frivolity, was more to her taste than the German solidity which her mother so highly esteemed, ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge

... of suicide in the hope that the officers of the law will be fooled of his trail, and that either a wronged bank or a deserted wife might get the insurance money. Of course, Mrs. Dodge might even be a party to a contemplated fraud, though that's not a fair inference against her unless something turns up to ...
— The High School Left End - Dick & Co. Grilling on the Football Gridiron • H. Irving Hancock

... constituents of plants, we entered with some degree of minuteness into the composition and relations of the different members of the former class, and expressed the opinion that they did not admit of being directly absorbed by the plant. But though the parts then stated lead to the inference that, as a direct source of these substances, humus is unimportant, it has other functions to perform which render it an essential constituent of all fertile soils. These functions are dependent partly on the power which it has of absorbing and entering into chemical composition with ...
— Elements of Agricultural Chemistry • Thomas Anderson

... 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 repute at ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable

... Dr. Copland cites many authorities in its favor, most especially Lombard's cases. But De la Berge and Monneret (Comp. de Med. Paris), 1839, analyze these same cases, eleven in number, and can only draw the inference of a very questionable value in the supposed remedy. Dr. James Jackson says that relief of epilepsy is not to be attained by any medicine with which he is acquainted, but by diet. (Letters to a Young Physician, p. 67.) Guy Patin, Dean of the Faculty ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... Turk answered meekly, meaning "What petition shall I make?" the inference being that all was in the ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy

... cattle ever come to an understanding—the Spanish for which embraced the larger aspect of the problem—there was nothing she desired or prayed for more than the friendship and presence of Corliss at the Loring hacienda. Corliss drew his own inference from this, which was a pleasant one. He felt that he had a friend at court, yet explained humorously that sheep and cattle were not by nature fitted to occupy the same territory. He was alive to sentiment, but more keen than ever to maintain his position ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs

... of quotation, it is not certain that he refers to any book whatever. The words of Christ, which he has put down, he might himself have heard from the apostles, or might have received them through the ordinary medium of oral tradition. This has been said; but that no such inference can be drawn from the absence of words of quotation is proved by the three following considerations:—First, that Clement in the very same manner, namely, without any mark of reference, uses a passage now found in the epistle to the Romans;[9] which passage from the peculiarity ...
— A Series of Letters In Defence of Divine Revelation • Hosea Ballou

... through the noise of cracking walnuts, and in came Elizabeth with the news that Mr Georgie wanted to know if he might come in for half-an-hour and chat. If it had been Olga Bracely herself, she could hardly have been more welcome; virtue (the virtue of observation and inference) was receiving its ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson

... region. It can, therefore, hardly be matter of doubt, that great permanent currents, caused by the unequal heating of the equatorial and polar regions, do exist in the higher strata of the atmosphere—an inference which is supported not only by the occurrence of the trade-winds and the monsoon, but by a variety of other ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 431 - Volume 17, New Series, April 3, 1852 • Various

... and the world, have the courage of my convictions, and take the consequences; and I am of the opinion that, if all the cultivated minds which, having studied the subject, agree with me in my conclusions were to be as frank as I am, there would be a large body of witnesses in accord with me. If the inference of a disembodied intelligence, as the source of such phenomena, is difficult of acceptation, that of fraud and collusion is inadmissible, and that of hallucination more difficult than that of the spiritual origin. Of the different hypotheses, then, I take ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James

... only inference that explains the subsequent rancour he displayed against her, aroused by her neglect to profit by his suggestions. The intercession of the divines of Winchester procured her a week's reprieve, and in that week her puissant friends in London, headed by the ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini

... the Balize, and the colony of the Bay Islands, and thereupon proceeds by implication to infer that if the stipulations of the treaty be merely future in effect Great Britain may still continue to hold the contested portions of Central America. The United States can not admit either the inference or the premises. We steadily deny that at the date of the treaty Great Britain had any possessions there other than the limited and peculiar establishment at the Balize, and maintain that if she had any they were ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... and even that it is very much to be desired that such belief should exist amongst them. I now add, that of all the kinds of dogmatical belief the most desirable appears to me to be dogmatical belief in matters of religion; and this is a very clear inference, even from no higher consideration than the interests of this world. There is hardly any human action, however particular a character be assigned to it, which does not originate in some very general idea men have conceived of the Deity, of his relation to mankind, ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville

... neck was actually broken. Had this been done in the dark?—must it not have been by a hand human as mine?—must there not have been a human agency all the while in that room? Good cause to suspect it. I cannot tell. I cannot do more than state the fact fairly; the reader may draw his own inference. ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various

... number of seals recently excavated from archaeological sites of the Indus valley, datable in the third millennium B.C., show figures seated in meditative postures now used in the system of Yoga, and warrant the inference that even at that time some of the rudiments of Yoga were already known. We may not unreasonably draw the conclusion that systematic introspection with the aid of studied methods has been practiced in India for five thousand years. . . . India has developed certain valuable ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda

... degree of antiquity, and gives a claim to originality, as far as we can venture to apply that term, which signifies no more than the state beyond which we have not the means, either historically or by fair inference, of tracing the origin. In this restricted sense it is that we are justified in considering the main portion of the Malayan as original, or indigenous, its affinity to any Continental tongue not having yet been shown; and least of all can we suppose ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel

... and his leadership antithetical to the Court's call for "all deliberate speed." He even withheld his support in school desegregation cases. Eisenhower was quite frank about the limitations he perceived in his power and, by inference, his duty to effect civil rights reforms. Such reforms, he believed, were a matter of the heart and, as he explained to Congressman Powell in 1953, could not be achieved by means of laws or directives or the action of ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.

... quantity of any other commodity, say of corn, of meat, of butter, or of cloth, will suffice to obtain in exchange any given quantity of gold, such as that which is contained in the sovereign. It is an obvious inference that our gold coinage, however useful as a medium of exchange, does not furnish us with a standard of value fixed and unalterable. It does not furnish us, for example, with such a standard as the yard is of length or as the pound troy is of weight. The popular ...
— If Not Silver, What? • John W. Bookwalter

... bring the Scientific world up to the practical recognition of that which they had theoretically maintained since Bacon's time,—that nothing deserves to be considered as true, which cannot be undoubtedly, conclusively established by inference, from the Facts of Experience,—a theory to which they had never strictly adhered. He insisted that all Theological, Metaphysical, and Transcendental Speculations were wholly beyond the range of exact inquiry, and should therefore be excluded ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... now told you everything that I know for certain, in relation to the man whom I brought back to life in the double-bedded room of the Inn at Doncaster. What I have next to add is matter for inference and surmise, and is not, ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens

... enactments could not find one which has escaped them, for the villains are perfectly black letter in that respect; and what is in proper keeping wid this, whenever they hear of a new Act of Parliament they cannot rest either night or day until they break it. And now for the inference: be on your guard against this pandemonial squad. Whatever your object may be in cultivating and keeping society wid them, theirs is to ruin you—fleece was the word used—an I then to cut and run, leaving Mr. Hycy—the acute, the penetrating, the accomplished—completely in ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... serious—was that they had "bound themselves into a solemn league and covenant to extol fleshliness as the distinct and supreme end of poetic and pictorial art; to aver that poetic expression is greater than poetic thought, and by inference that the body is greater than the soul, and ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine

... inference had been, as he was lying there upon his back, that he must be in bed; but now he found that, though there were no bed-clothes, he was wearing his own, only upon feeling about with no little pain they did not seem like ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn

... pp. 339-356), whereas the practice of mummification, though not wholly absent, is not obtrusive, might perhaps be interpreted by some scholars as evidence in favour of the development of the custom of making statues independently of mummification. But such an inference is untenable. Not only is it the fact that in most parts of the world the practices of making statues and mummifying the dead are found in association the one with the other, but also in China the ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith

... hospital in order to start in practice for himself. We know there has been a presentation. We believe there has been a change from a town hospital to a country practice. Is it, then, stretching our inference too far to say that the presentation was on ...
— Hound of the Baskervilles • Authur Conan Doyle

... followed. Fitzjames himself thought, though he was not 'quite sure,' that the man was guilty. He commented upon the case in another article in the 'Saturday Review,' not, of course, to dispute the verdict, but to draw a characteristic inference. Is it not, he asks, very hard upon a poor prisoner that he should have no better means of obtaining counsel than the request of the judge at the last moment to some junior barrister? They manage these things, ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen

... reasoning whereby from the existence of these known facts, the conclusion, hitherto unaccepted, is reached. Those facts that have to do with the proposition under discussion are known as evidence. The process of combining facts and deriving an inference from them is known as reasoning. Evidence may be made up of the testimony of witnesses, the opinion of experts, knowledge derived from experience, the testimony of documents, or circumstances that are generally ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee

... by those who are trying to help young men solve their greatest problems. I have in mind the need of self-control in marriage. Most writers and lecturers who emphasize the arguments for absolute self-control or continence before marriage, omit all reference to marital life. The natural inference, and one widely followed, is that the only moral duty of a young man is to control his intense desires and avoid illicit relations until sexual abandon is permitted under the license of the law and the benediction of the church. Such, I submit, is a ...
— Sex-education - A series of lectures concerning knowledge of sex in its - relation to human life • Maurice Alpheus Bigelow

... determin'd down to a single Year, yet 'tis pretty generally agreed that he liv'd above 300 Years before Draco and Solon: And That, it seems, has made him seem to allude to the very Laws, which these Two Legislators propounded above 300 Years after. If this Inference be not something like an Anachronism or Prolepsis, I'll look once more into my Lexicons for the true Meaning of the Words. It appears to me, that somebody besides Mars and Venus has been caught in a Net by this Episode: ...
— Preface to the Works of Shakespeare (1734) • Lewis Theobald

... it. I've simmered the thing down to this: Living in a hash-house aint a guarantee of honesty any more than living in a four-story brown-stone is a sure sign of robbery, but it's a tolerably safe inference." ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland

... are sure to tell him a price higher than the true. When Lesley, two hundred years ago, related so punctiliously, that a hundred hen eggs, new laid, were sold in the Islands for a peny, he supposed that no inference could possibly follow, but that eggs were in great abundance. Posterity has since grown wiser; and having learned, that nominal and real value may differ, they now tell no such stories, lest the foreigner should happen ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson

... "Brooklyn," but Craven also in the "Tecumseh," departed from the admiral's orders and left the course dictated to them, with disastrous results. There is no necessity to condemn either captain; but the irresistible inference is that Farragut was unqualifiedly right in his opinion that the man who alone has the highest responsibility should, under the conditions of his battles, be in the front. And here it must be remarked that at such critical moments of doubt any but the highest order ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan

... these had arisen on trivial impulses, a trivial resistance might have intercepted them. If a man has once persuaded himself, that long, costly, and bloody wars had arisen upon a point of ceremony, upon a personal pique, upon a hasty word, upon some explosion of momentary caprice; it is a natural inference, that strength of national will and public combinations for resistance, supposing such forces to have been trained, organized, and, from the circumstances of the particular nation, to be permanently disposable for action, might prove ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... the laws he had left them." The Bishop(781) would have got off upon judgments, and bade the player remember, that all the regicides came to violent ends; a lie, but no matter. "I would not advise your lordship," said Quin, "to make use of that inference; for, if I am not mistaken, that was the case of the twelve apostles." There was great wit ad hominem in the latter reply, but I think the former equal to any thing I ever heard. It is the sum of the whole controversy couched in eight monosyllables, and comprehends at once the King's guilt ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole

... precedents adduced, with a humourous reference to the style in which charges are commonly given to juries, show what patterns persecutors choose to copy, and whose kingdom they labour to uphold. Nor can any impartial man deny that the inference is fair, which our author meant the reader to deduce, namely, that nominal Protestants, enacting laws requiring conformity to their own creeds and forms, and inflicting punishments on such as peaceably dissent from them, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... I held, philosophically, while in respect of revealed religion I remained a zealous Unitarian. I considered the idea of the Trinity a fair scholastic inference from the being of God, as a creative intelligence; and that it was therefore entitled to the rank of an esoteric doctrine of natural religion. But seeing in the same no practical or moral bearing, I confined it to the schools of philosophy. ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... that the moon had a lower specific gravity than the earth, one knew that it had little air or water outside, one knew, too, that it was sister planet to the earth, and that it was unaccountable that it should be different in composition. The inference that it was hollowed out was as clear as day. And yet one never saw it as a ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells

... is the precise inference which one is to draw from the fact that the constitution of the German Empire leaves, for example, to Bavaria a large amount of independence it is not very easy to understand. The whole circumstances of the German Empire are as different from ...
— England's Case Against Home Rule • Albert Venn Dicey

... leave this branch of the discussion without indicating what I deem is the fair inference or result from it. I do not claim that the age of the poet's friend can be certainly stated from anything contained in the Sonnets. It seems to me, however, that it mars the poetry and makes its notes seem inappropriate and discordant, ...
— Testimony of the Sonnets as to the Authorship of the Shakespearean Plays and Poems • Jesse Johnson

... existing between Lady Byron and Mrs. Leigh, in a manner which would lead us to feel that Lady Byron received and was received by Lord Byron's sister with the greatest affection. Lady Byron herself says to Lady Anne Barnard, 'I had heard that he was the best of brothers;' and the inference is, that she, at an early period of her married life, felt the greatest confidence in his sister, and wished to have her with them as much as possible. In Lady Anne's account, this wish to have the sister with her was increased ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... 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 took another sip ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown

... 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 and a tempting lip; moreover, she appeared by no means indifferent ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner



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



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