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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



... that it reduced him to something like equivocation. She wanted to know if anything could be more splendid than Mr. Bradley as Lord Ingleton; she confided to Stephen that that was what she called real wickedness, the kind that did the most harm, and invited him, by inference, to a liberal judgment of stupid sinners. He sat emitting short unsmiling sentences with eyes nervously fugitive from Lady Dolly's too proximate opulence until the third act began. Then he gave place with embarrassed alacrity to Colonel Cummins, and folded ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan

... carrying of their materials or vessels, without their leave first obtained or had. (Scobell, 377.) This is the act referred to by BROCTUNA ("N. & Q.," Vol. vii., p. 434.), and by my friend MR. ISAIAH DECK ("N. & Q.," Vol. vii., p. 460.), though I am not certain that MR. DECK'S inference be correct, that this act was passed in consequence of the new and uncertain process for obtaining the constituents of nitre having failed; and it is quite clear that Lord Coke could not have referred to this act. The enactment referred to is introduced ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 187, May 28, 1853 • Various

... no inference can be drawn from the meaning of the word, that a constitution has a higher authority than a law or statute,"—Webster cor. "Whence we may likewise date the period of this event."—L. Murray cor. ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... their own conclusions. The corner stone of the Federation's legislative program, the legal exemption of trade unions from the operation of anti-trust legislation and from court interference in disputes by means of injunctions, was yet to be laid. By inference, therefore, the election of a Democratic administration was the logical means to ...
— A History of Trade Unionism in the United States • Selig Perlman

... Sir Bingo's valour is of this last kind, Captain—I presume that is the inference. I should have thought it more like a boy's cannon, which is fired by means of a train, and is but a ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott

... strongly impressed with a sense of duty to God. Yet he had been deeply concerned in the plot for blowing up King, Lords, and Commons, and had, on the brink of eternity, declared that it was incomprehensible to him how any Roman Catholic should think such a design sinful. The inference popularly drawn from these things was that, however fair the general character of a Papist might be, there was no excess of fraud or cruelty of which he was not capable when the safety and honour of his Church were ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... said, "you would see Colonel Morris yourself. I am quite certain that every statement he made to me is true in his belief. I do not say, I believe him; I only say, what he told me justifies the inference that some one is playing a clever game in River Hall," and then I repeated in detail all the circumstances Colonel Morris had communicated to me, not excepting the wonderful phenomenon witnessed by Mr. Morris, of a man walking through ...
— The Uninhabited House • Mrs. J. H. Riddell

... narrative of a particular series of operations may be given, in such detail as is necessary, accompanied by a running commentary or criticism, in which the successive occurrences are brought to the test of recognized standards; inference being drawn, or judgment passed, accordingly. The former is the more formal and methodical; it serves better, perhaps, for starting upon his career the beginner who proposes to make war the profession of his life; for it provides ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan

... Trimen tells me that as a boy he used to paint butterflies, and that they long haunted the same place, but he made no further observations on them. As far as colour is concerned, I see I shall have to trust to mere inference from the males displaying their plumage, and other analogous facts. I shall get no direct evidence of the preference of the hens. Mr. Hewitt, of Birmingham, tells me that the common hen prefers a salacious cock, but ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin

... and fell a-thinking. The inference was too plain to be misunderstood. The "special inducement" in this instance had been the hope of meeting herself. Actually it would appear that he had travelled some distance to ensure this chance, but the chance had been deliberately denied. Kind Mrs Willoughby ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... "Alessandro nelle Indie" (1745); for Milan, "Demofoonte," "Siface" and "Fedra" (1742-1744); in all, eight operas in five years. None of these works in their complete form are now in existence; fragments alone have been preserved. If any inference is justified from these extracts the style throughout was that of the ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews

... the Tuscaloosa is a vessel of war, and by inference a prize, astonishes me, because I do not see the necessary incompatibility. Four guns were taken from on board the Talisman (also a prize), and put on board the Conrad (Tuscaloosa), but that transfer did not change the character of either vessel ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes

... thing. It must not be supposed, however, that the course of this domestic life was without annoyance, as even here at this early day servants were inclined to be exacting and hard to please. At least, that is the inference which may be drawn from a letter by an old notary of Florence, Lapo Mazzei, wherein he takes occasion to say, in inviting a friend to supper, that it will be entirely convenient to have him come, inasmuch as he has taken the precaution, in order not to trouble the house servants, to ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger

... them at a proper distance[104]." It is an interesting query, whether this fear thus expressed of Seward's temper was not of distinct benefit to the United States at the moment when the Southern Commissioners arrived in England. The inference would seem to be clear, that in spite of Lyons' advice to treat them well, the effect upon Russell of Seward's attitude was to treat them coolly. Russell was indeed distinctly worried ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams

... from that intention. That, if his own fortune in the year 1784 was unequal to so heavy a charge, the state of his fortune at any earlier period must have been still more unequal to so heavy a charge. That the fact so asserted by the said Warren Hastings leads directly to an inference palpably false and absurd, viz., that, the longer a Governor-General holds that lucrative office, the poorer he must become. That neither would the assertion, if it were true, nor the inference, if it were admitted, justify the conduct avowed by the said Warren Hastings ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... system was pivoted;[757] and what Epicurus himself understood by them, or any of his followers down to Lucretius, is matter of subtle and perplexing disputation.[758] One point is clear, that they had no interest in human beings;[759] and the natural inference would be that human beings had no call to worship them; yet, strange to say, Epicurus himself took part in worship, and in the worship of the national religion of his native city. Philodemus, the contemporary of Lucretius, expressly asserts this,[760] ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler

... consideration for me would make him confine himself, in his observations, to facts that were too flagrant, and too openly avowed, to be disputed. It could not therefore justly displease, he would venture to say, if he made this natural inference from the premises, That if such were my father's behaviour to a wife, who disputed not the imaginary prerogatives he was so unprecedently fond of asserting, what room had a daughter to hope, that he would depart ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson

... interrogated further, and was displeased. I perceived this and was silent. For some days, no mention was made of his dear friend the minister. He was accustomed to speak often of that man, and most affectionately. What was the inference? A breach had taken place. If I entertained the idea for a day, it was dissipated on the next; for the doctor, a week having elapsed since his last visit, rode over to the parsonage as usual, remained there some hours, and returned in his best and gayest spirits. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various

... earlier days clearly enough, and has recorded his sentiments held at that period in his "Phases."(p.42) If I were to grant you, therefore, your proposition, it would leave the question of an external revelation untouched; your hasty inference from it, that every book-revelation is to ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers

... me. They come slower to you, and the moment you see their shadows before you, you turn round to the light, and throw these dark figures behind you. I can't do that; I could when I was younger, but I can't now. Reason is comparing two ideas, and drawing an inference. Insanity is, when you have such a rapid succession of ideas, that you can't compare them. How great then must be the pain when you are almost pressed into insanity and yet retain your reason? What is a broken heart? Is it death? ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... other distinguishing marks of cretins. I could not learn whether it was necessary that both parents should have goitres, to produce cretin children: indeed the want of chastity in the half-breed women would be a bar to the deduction of any inference on ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 1 • John Franklin

... through all Parts of the Town till eight at Night; at which time he came to a Club of his Friends, and diverted them with an Account what Censure it had at Will's in Covent-Garden, how dangerous it was believed to be at Child's, and what Inference they drew from it with Relation to Stocks at Jonathan's. I have had the Honour to travel with this Gentleman I speak of in Search of one of his Falshoods; and have been present when they have described the very ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... own fleet was at the end of those years might be fresh in all our memories, if we had time to remember. Delayed action maybe eminently proper at one moment; at another it may mean the loss of opportunity. Nor is the process of rapid decision—essential in the field—wholly unsafe in council, if inference and conclusion are checked by reference to well-settled principles and fortified by knowledge of the experience of ages upon whose broad bases those principles rest. Pottering over mechanical details doubtless has its place, but it tends to foster a hesitancy of action ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan

... was then struck with his appearance, and stern, martial air. At a subsequent period, I heard him talked about in the neighbourhood where he had resided: some mention him with enthusiasm—others with detestation. I listened to various anecdotes, balanced evidence against evidence, and drew an inference. The original of Mr. Hall I have seen; he knows me slightly; but he would as soon think I had closely observed him or taken him for a character—he would as soon, indeed, suspect me of writing a hook—a novel—as he would ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... 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 hand ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott

... torture. Accordingly, on the 19th of June, the weak and ailing tsarevich received twenty-five strokes with the knout (as then administered nobody ever survived thirty), and on the 24th fifteen more. It was hardly possible that he could survive such treatment; the natural inference is that he was not intended to survive it. Anyway, he expired two days later in the guardhouse of the citadel of St Petersburg, two days after the senate had condemned him to death for imagining rebellion against his father, and for hoping ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... Salkeld, 174, The King v. Best. The judgment of the Court in that case is, that several persons may lawfully meet and consult to prosecute a guilty person; otherwise, to charge a person who is innocent, right or wrong, would be indictable. The inference is, that upon a charge of conspiracy to do an act which in itself is perfectly innocent, which is not indictable, you must state something upon the face of the record, shewing a mischief connected with it, to make it indictable. I submit to your Lordships, there is nothing ...
— The Trial of Charles Random de Berenger, Sir Thomas Cochrane, • William Brodie Gurney

... hollowed caves they dwelt, as emmets dwell, Weak feathers for each blast, in sunless caves. Nor had they certain forecast of the cold, Nor of the advent of the flowery spring, Nor of the fruitful summer. All they wrought, Unreasoning they wrought, till I made clear The laws of rising stars, and inference dim, More hard to learn, of what their setting showed. I taught to them withal that art of arts, The lore of number, and the written word That giveth sense to sound, the tool wherewith The gift of memory was wrought in all, ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus

... you call it: the mechanical and automatic putting together of impressions received from outside, and drawing an inference from them. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... also suffered persecution from the Jews; and Peter draws this inference from it—If we, who obey the gospel of God, have to endure so many persecutions from the Jews—if this judgment begins at us, how much sorer punishment will our enemies have to endure, who obey not the gospel of God? And if we the righteous are scarcely ...
— Twenty-Four Short Sermons On The Doctrine Of Universal Salvation • John Bovee Dods

... interest, from different 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 ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt

... the market. The infant, on the other hand, sucks the bottle as it would suck its mother's breast; it rests when fatigued, it stops to play, it leaves off when it has had enough, and many a useful inference may be drawn by the observant nurse or mother who watches the infant sucking, and notices if the child sucks feebly, or leaves off panting from want of breath, or stops in the midst, and cries because its mouth is sore or its gums ...
— The Mother's Manual of Children's Diseases • Charles West, M.D.

... show that the little ones begot the big ones? It may be said the wood screws do not beget progeny. Well, here is a hill containing twenty-three potatoes, weighing from half an ounce to half a pound, and quite regularly graded. Did the small potatoes beget the big ones? The inference of birth descent from gradation is utterly illogical, and of a piece with the incoherency which we have seen in the other parts of the theory. It never could be inferred from the facts stated, even did nature ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson

... possessed Sissy as the door closed on her big sister. She was in the familiar frame of mind in which she disapproved of her sisters, yet she was terrified lest, if she gave him time, her father might draw the same inference that she had. ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson

... been below, by inference asleep; but when the yacht changed her course he immediately appeared on deck. He moved aft, but Woolfolk made no explanation, the sailor put no questions. The wind freshened, ...
— Wild Oranges • Joseph Hergesheimer

... marriage was therefore solemnized, and the child entered in the church-books as the legitimized son of Venanzio and Maria Bonci, in June, 1836. Against this strong presumptive evidence of paternity, and the natural inference to be drawn from the child having been brought up and educated as Venanzio's son, there were only, we are told, to be set, alleged expressions of doubt on the father's part, when in a passion, as to his being really the father, and also certain confessions of the mother to different ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey

... "My case exactly," retorted Elliston—with a charming forgetfulness, that the converse of a proposition does not always lead to the same conclusion—"I am the same person off the stage that I am on." The inference, at first sight, seems identical; but examine it a little, and it confesses only, that the one performer was never, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb

... Again, the inference from these positions would be that all terms applied to God have only a secondary import, such, for instance, as we give to the word healthy, as applied to medicine; whereby we signify that it is productive of health in the organism, while the organism ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner

... and the Discovery of Florida by R. Hakluyt, ed. by W. B. Rye for the Hakluyt Soc., 1851, introd. p. x.; cp. Larousse (s.v.), and Pierer's Conversations Lexicon. It is stated by some authorities that Florida was so called because it was discovered on Palm Sunday; this is due to a mistaken inference from the names for that Sunday—Pascha Florum, Pascha Floridum (Ducange), Pasque Fleurie (Cotgrave); see Dict. Geog. Univ., 1884, and Brockhaus.] Surely Florida, as the name passes under our eye, or from our lips, is something more than it was before, when we may thus think ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench

... tobacco tenant no less illiterate, and with a brain that was a hotbed of lawless mischief, and who held the life of a man as cheap as the life of a steer fattening for the butcher's knife. But in all the gossip there was no sinister suggestion or even thought save in the primitive inference ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.

... the child's growth shows a stage in which any process is clearly absent, we have at once light upon the laws of growth. For instance: if a single case is conclusively established of a child's drawing an inference before it begins to use words or significant vocal sounds, the one case is as good as a thousand to show that thought may develop in some degree independently of ...
— The Story of the Mind • James Mark Baldwin

... is generally used to introduce a clause of repetition, a clause stating the obverse, and a clause stating an inference. ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster

... as his fellow townsman to speak for him; but Farnsworth said nothing, and seemed preoccupied and doubtful. The inference was that he shared their perplexity. They felt that Keith, for all his "cantankerousness," might be right. Solomon could draw no ...
— The Calico Cat • Charles Miner Thompson

... arrow-heads, Numbers 13 and 14, are of a form entirely unknown as yet in any other age or country. The extreme top of the head is of a chisel form, and this passes below into the more familiar pointed form. The inference here is almost inevitable, and it seems as if the arrow-heads had been made in this peculiar way with a view to using the arrow a second time after the tip was broken in ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 12 (of 12) • S. Rappoport

... This inference appears inevitable, but his profound vision perceived its possible invalidity. He saw that it was at least possible that the difference of conducting power between the earth and the wire might give ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various

... examples would be termed perfect trills because they close with a turn. By inference, an imperfect trill is one closing ...
— Music Notation and Terminology • Karl W. Gehrkens

... one of the places which had been treated with more than ordinary severity in the last war. It was also one of the places in which the natives showed the most friendly disposition towards foreigners. To the resident traders the inference was obvious: the severity was the cause of the friendly disposition, and it had only to be applied elsewhere to produce the like results. With evident satisfaction Lord Elgin sets himself, in an official despatch, to refute this reasoning. After observing that the natives ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin

... very speedily brought the matter to a point—'Come, speak out, my good fellow, what has put it in your head to be on ceremony with me? But the result is in one word—disappointment!' My silence admitted his inference to its fullest extent. His countenance certainly did look rather blank for a few seconds (for it is a singular fact, that before the public, or rather the booksellers, gave their decision he no more knew whether he had written well or ill, than whether a die, which ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott

... all this happened. Neither Arthur nor Urien are mentioned as being present, and though the stanzas containing their names may have been lost, it must be admitted that in the case of such distinguished warriors reason will not warrant the supposition: the fair inference would be that they were dead at the time. This view is, moreover, supported by readings of the Gododin, where certain heroes are compared to the said chiefs respectively, "of Arthur," "un Urien," which would hardly have been done ...
— Y Gododin - A Poem on the Battle of Cattraeth • Aneurin

... lowlands. May we then infer that man became divested of hair from having aboriginally inhabited some tropical land? That the hair is chiefly retained in the male sex on the chest and face, and in both sexes at the junction of all four limbs with the trunk, favours this inference—on the assumption that the hair was lost before man became erect; for the parts which now retain most hair would then have been most protected from the heat of the sun. The crown of the head, however, offers a curious exception, for at all times it must have been one of the most exposed parts, ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin

... said another Chief, eagerly interrupting the speaker, "the truth in what has been first said, but not the inference. If Vich Alister More desires to be held representative of the Lord of the Isles, let him first show his blood is redder ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott

... his language to his conduct in office. Almost every salutary measure of administration, from the resignation of lord North downward, was brought about during the union of the noble earl with the Rockingham connexion. What inference are we to draw from this?—That administration, as auspicious as it was transitory, has never been charged with more than one error. They were thought too liberal in the distribution of two or three sinecures and pensions. To whom were they distributed? ...
— Four Early Pamphlets • William Godwin

... found that these men of acknowledged and pre-eminent saintliness agree very closely in what they tell us about God. They tell us that they have arrived gradually at an unshakable conviction, not based on inference but on immediate experience, that God is a Spirit with whom the human spirit can hold intercourse; that in Him meet all that they can imagine of goodness, truth, and beauty; that they can see His footprints everywhere in nature, and feel His presence within them ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge

... concealed that theoretically the bill increases the paper circulation $100,000,000, less only the amount of reserves restrained from circulation by the provision of the second section. The measure has been supported on the theory that it would give increased circulation. It is a fair inference, therefore, that if in practice the measure should fail to create the abundance of circulation expected of it the friends of the measure, particularly those out of Congress, would clamor for such inflation as would ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant • James D. Richardson

... plantation, perhaps, or the erection of some building, intercepted the light of the beacon. But a moment's reflection assured him, that from the high and free situation which Martindale Castle bore in reference to the surrounding country, this could not have taken place; and the inference necessarily forced itself upon his mind, that Sir Geoffrey, his father, was either deceased, or that the family must have been disturbed by some strange calamity, under the pressure of which, their wonted custom and solemn usage had ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott

... analysis of suspicion. In Julia, I saw sweetness mixed with a delicate reserve. She seemed to speak but little. Her eyes wandered from her companion—frequently to where I sat—-but I gave myself due credit, at such moments, for the ability with which I conducted my own espionage. My inference—equally unjust and unnatural—that her timid glances to my-self denoted in her bosom a consciousness of wrong—seemed to me the most natural and inevitable inference. And when I noted the ardency of Edgerton's gaze, his close, unrelaxing ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms

... correctness of the lawyer's opinion 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 ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt

... give any to Mrs. Dodd, and he was as guarded and reserved with Alfred. The young man begged to know the why and the wherefore, and being repulsed, employed all his art to elicit them by surprise, or get at them by inference: but all in vain. Hardie senior was impenetrable; and inquiry, petulance, tenderness, logic, were all shattered on him as the waves ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade

... 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

... convince him that they are not less rich than their neighbours, 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 ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson

... they are not returned to me, as in the case of their being unaccepted, I expressly begged they might be. Had the old editor been the present one, my inference would of course be, that their insertion was a determined matter; but as it is, I don't know what to think.[31] A long list of great names, belonging to intending contributors, appeared in the paper a day or two ago, and among ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon

... side are indeed extreme in their fanaticism. They shut their eyes to the most obvious facts, and do not hesitate in their blindness to misrepresent the most obvious truths. They affirm that under the influence of total abstinence and, by inference, because of total abstinence, the yearly decreasing death-rate of the population is accompanied by reduction of vitality; that people who live long are more enfeebled than those who live short lives and merry; that under abstinence ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen

... at the Bulgarian Consulate in Salonika was a large stock of red brassards. But the inference that they belonged to members of the British V.T.C., who were determined to fight for the enemy rather than not fight ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 12, 1916 • Various

... presumptuous in any musician to think that he can have anything to say after Beethoven has finished. With your permission we will consider my cadenza played.'" That Beethoven may himself have had a thought of the same nature is a fair inference from the circumstance that he refused to leave the cadenza in his E-flat pianoforte concerto to the mercy of the virtuosos but ...
— How to Listen to Music, 7th ed. - Hints and Suggestions to Untaught Lovers of the Art • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... that it was an avoided house—a house that was shunned by the village, to which my eye was guided by a church spire some half a mile off—a house that nobody would take. And the natural inference was, that it had the reputation ...
— The Signal-Man #33 • Charles Dickens

... the inference? you ask:—I'll tell;— Live single, if you know you are well; But if old Hymen o'er your senses reign, Beware Honestas, or you'll ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine

... not be developed in consciousness, by the operation of a single faculty of the mind, in a simple, undivided act. It originates in the spontaneous operation of the whole mind. It is a necessary deduction from the facts of the universe, and the primitive intuitions of the reason,—a logical inference from the facts of sense, consciousness, and reason. A philosophy of religion which regards the feelings as supreme, and which brands the decisions of reason as uncertain, and well-nigh valueless, necessarily degenerates into mysticism—a mysticism "which pretends to elevate man directly to God, ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker

... is a significant fact, however, that the plant experimented with by the Commission was cress—a non-leguminous plant. It has been commonly assumed that the results of recent experiments have confirmed Ville's experiments. It is only proper to point out that this is not a necessary inference. The assimilation of free nitrogen by the leguminosae, so far as modern research has revealed, only takes place under the influence of micro-organic life. Ville's experiments, however, were supposed to ...
— Manures and the principles of manuring • Charles Morton Aikman

... 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 ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood

... I said, a minor point, and perhaps one from which any sort of inference would be unsafe. It interested me. I lay no ...
— Witness For The Defense • A.E.W. Mason

... though punctual in paying his rent, his means seemed small; he kept no servant and took his meals out of the house. Going out every morning before ten o'clock, he seldom came in before night; the inference was that he was either a clerk in some office, or that he gave music ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac

... after my arrival, we were sitting over a glass of port after dinner, when young Trevor began to talk about those habits of observation and inference which I had already formed into a system, although I had not yet appreciated the part which they were to play in my life. The old man evidently thought that his son was exaggerating in his description of one or two trivial ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 28, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... what philosophical doctrines were explicitly taught, the answer must be a very short one. English philosophy barely existed. Parr was supposed to know something about metaphysics—apparently because he could write good Latin. But the inference was hasty. Of one book, however, which had a real influence, I must say something, for though it contained little definite philosophy, it showed what kind of philosophy was congenial to the common sense ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen

... the perfume of the rose and the violet, the brilliancy of the tulip and the sweetness of the nectar of flowers; not only does it help us to understand all these, but serves as a basis of future research and of inference from the known to the unknown, and it guides the investigator to the discovery of new facts which, when ascertained, it seems also able to co-ordinate.[6] Nay, "Natural Selection" seems capable of application not only to the building ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart

... which she was defending herself struck her from a most unexpected angle. That Stephen should misunderstand her motives was preposterous; yet there was no other inference to be drawn from the tone of his conversation during the few distressful minutes of his last visit. In all probability, he had gone away laboring under the hateful impression that she was untrue, that she had permitted ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett

... small ones, and to be dissipated into dust and vapor at the time of their sudden heating; so numerous are they that 40,000 have been counted in one evening, and an exceptionally great display comes about once in 331/4 years. The inference from their periodicity is, that they are small bodies moving round the sun in orbits of their own, and that whenever the earth crosses their orbits, thereby getting into their path, a splendid display of meteors results. A second display, a year later, usually follows the exceptionally ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XXI., No. 531, March 6, 1886 • Various

... revolutionists like Robespierre, and destructive thinkers like Rousseau and Voltaire. It is true that he believes the two latter to have been on the whole, when all deductions are made, on the side of human progress. But what sort of foundation in this for the inference that he "finds his models in the heroes of the French Revolution," and "looks for his methods in the Reign of Terror"? It would be equally logical to infer that because I have written, not without sympathy and appreciation, of Joseph de Maistre, I therefore find my model in a hero of the Catholic ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley

... form these books offer a satisfactory course in spoken Spanish. The FIRST BOOK teaches directly by illustration, contrast, association, and natural inference. The exercises grow out of pictured objects and actions, and the words are kept so constantly in mind that no translation or use of English is required to fix their meaning. In the SECOND BOOK the accentuation agrees with the ...
— Contes et lgendes - 1re Partie • H. A. Guerber

... weapons than those of persuasion and the power of God in the propagation of their doctrines, leaving such as did not choose to follow them to their own way. They were explicit also in stating the spiritual nature of Christ's kingdom, from whence an inference similar to the former is deducible, namely, that no compulsory interference can be effectual in matters of religion. And St. Paul, in particular, tells the Corinthians, that, in his spiritual services to them, he does not consider himself [1]"as having any dominion over their faith, but ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson

... of the early progress of this charming love affair. The inference is that it proceeded upon orthodox and unexceptional lines. Mr. Pennroyal would make known to the widow of the late Colonel the aspirations of his heart, and would receive from her permission to address himself to the lady of his ...
— Archibald Malmaison • Julian Hawthorne

... woman takes a husband, the first sets about and carefully weighs, then separates and distinguishes in her mind, which of all that number of ends is hers; then by discourse, enquiry, argumentation, and inference, she investigates and finds out whether she has got hold of the right one—and if she has—then, by pulling it gently this way and that way, she further forms a judgment, whether it will not break ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne

... unconsciously adopted an adult-to-adult manner. "I think I'm getting somewhere, too. You've read these books? Well, look, Dad; what's your attitude on precognition? The ability of the human mind to exhibit real knowledge, apart from logical inference, of future events? You think Dunne is telling the truth about his experiences? Or that the cases in Tyrrell's book are properly verified, and can't be explained away ...
— Time and Time Again • Henry Beam Piper

... vivacity of conception, according to the foregoing principles; and though this relation should not be so strong as that of causation, it must still have a considerable influence. Resemblance and contiguity are relations not to be neglected; especially when by an inference from cause and effect, and by the observation of external signs, we are informed of the real existence of the object, ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume

... The inference to which we are brought is, that the CAUSES of faction cannot be removed, and that relief is only to be sought in the means of ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison

... "There is but one,—He that sitteth in the heaven,—who is able to teach man wisdom. Though we are come so far, we know not whether He will please to teach you by us, or no. If He teaches you, you will learn wisdom; but we can do nothing." All the inference which the poor Indian could draw from this was, that he who had come as a religious teacher disclaimed his own abilities, and referred to a divine Instructer, of whom the Mico could know nothing as yet, by whom alone the converting knowledge ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris

... Constitution which resulted from their deliberations, its effects during a trial of so many years on the prosperity of the people living under it, and the interest it has inspired among the friends of free government, it is not an unreasonable inference that a careful and extended report of the proceedings and discussions of that body, which were with closed doors, by a member who was constant in his attendance, will be particularly gratifying to the people of the United States and to all who take an ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 3: Andrew Jackson (Second Term) • James D. Richardson

... long-hour system, ergo, he should not oppose it! The fair implication of Mr. Brotherton's speech was that he had risen in spite of the long-hour system, and if Sir James could have regarded the arguments of the honourable member for Salford with common candour, he must have drawn that inference. The bill was carried through both houses with rapid success, after undergoing certain modifications. Lord Brougham took occasion to launch his thunders against his former friends in the ministry for their varying opinions, forgetful ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... the gastric fluid, by a species of instinctive intelligence, would only secrete enough fluid to convert into chyme the aliment needed to supply the real wants of the system. What are the reasons for this inference? There is no evidence that the gastric glands possess instinctive intelligence, and can there be a reason adduced, why they may not be stimulated to extra functional action as well as other organs, and why they may not also be ...
— A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) • Calvin Cutter

... Francisco. Elsie Moss understood this, and knew that Miss Pritchard did so; but she felt that the latter wondered that she had no relics or keepsakes with her. She had had to confess one day that she had no photographs of her family she would be willing to show, leaving Miss Pritchard to make such inference as she would. ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray

... the wedding. King, who was in tears, said, "You have just met the most unhappy man on earth; but on the subject of his wretchedness you must never ask a question." Will it be believed that Scott—who rejects Delany's inference from this alleged incident—had no better authority for it than "a friend of ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift

... one as much as the other. We have been content, for our practical purpose, without any too subtle refinement, to take the line of demarcation which is, perhaps, as obvious as any, and as generally recognised. Few would say that a generalised inference from direct experience was not matter of reason rather than of faith; though an act of faith is involved in the process; and few would not call confidence in testimony where probabilities were nearly balanced, by the name of faith rather than reason, ...
— Reason and Faith; Their Claims and Conflicts • Henry Rogers

... while the fifth has fifteen, eight of which (cxxxviii.-cxlv.) occur almost at the close. The intention is obvious—to throw the Davidic psalms as much as possible together in the first two books. And the inference is not unnatural that these may have formed an earlier collection, to which were afterwards added the remaining three, with a considerable body of alleged psalms of David, which had subsequently come to light, placed ...
— The Life of David - As Reflected in His Psalms • Alexander Maclaren

... through various channels, the greater number are either imperfectly attested, or exposed to objections of different kinds which render them of little value; and respecting his theatrical life the most important circumstances still remain matter of conjecture, or at best of remote inference. ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin

... I had to begin to inquire somewhere, and there was none to ask. I know that you were with her at Whitby. She sometimes kept a diary, you need not look surprised, Madam Mina. It was begun after you had left, and was an imitation of you, and in that diary she traces by inference certain things to a sleep-walking in which she puts down that you saved her. In great perplexity then I come to you, and ask you out of your so much kindness to tell me all of it that ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker

... A——, "a fact which it took me very long to discover. I have not deciphered all the more difficult passages of the manuscript from which I took this example; but I have ascertained the meaning of all its simple characters, and your inference is ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg

... hundred years after the first religious persecution of the drink in Arabia, we find it being persecuted by commercial zealots in the United States. And even in the house of its friends, coffee was being stabbed in the back. The coffee merchants themselves presented the spectacle of "knocking" it by inference and innuendo. ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers

... Predicant Friars ranged themselves on the side of the King, who had always been their friend, and whose own confessor, Luke de Wodeford, was of their Order. (Rot. Ex., Pasc, 2 Ed. III.) That the Despensers also patronised them is rather an inference founded upon fact, yet on such facts as very decidedly point to this conclusion. It should not be forgotten, that all accounts of the reign and character of Edward the Second which have come down to us were written by monks, or by persons ...
— The Well in the Desert - An Old Legend of the House of Arundel • Emily Sarah Holt

... finely-ignorant woman wish to know how Bob's eye at a glance announced a dog-fight to his brain? He did not, he could not, see the dogs fighting: it was a flash of an inference, a rapid induction. The crowd round a couple of dogs fighting is a crowd masculine mainly, with an occasional active, compassionate woman fluttering wildly round the outside and using her tongue and her hands freely upon the men, as so many "brutes;" it is a crowd annular, compact, and mobile; ...
— Rab and His Friends • John Brown, M. D.

... Bolingbroke upon history. I cannot agree with him as to its utility. The more I consider, the more I am convinced that its study has been upon the whole pernicious to mankind. It is by those details, which are always as unfair in their inference as they must evidently be doubtful in their facts, that party animosity and general prejudice are supported and sustained. There is not one abuse—one intolerance—one remnant of ancient barbarity and ignorance existing at the present ...
— Falkland, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... Sir, as to the inference of an admission of our right not to be searched, drawn from a reparation made for ships unduly seized and confiscated, I think that argument is very inconclusive. The right claimed by Spain to search our ships is one thing, and the excesses admitted ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones

... ambulance for General Polk's body;" and later in the day another, "Why don't you send an ambulance for General Polk?" From this we inferred that General Polk had been killed, but how or where we knew not; and this inference was confirmed later in the same day by the report of some prisoners ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... was to the bad one; but it is not without superficial sanction in 'Fifine at the Fair'; and the part which the author allowed himself to play in it did him an injustice only to be measured by the inference which it has been made to support. There could be no mistake more ludicrous, were it less regrettable, than that of classing Mr. Browning, on moral grounds, with Byron or Shelley; even in the case of Goethe the analogy breaks down. The evidence of the foregoing pages has rendered all protest superfluous. ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr

... change, and for a similar reason, was the refusal of the cup to the laity. St. Anselm is responsible for the dictum (afterwards accepted by the whole Church) that "Christ is consumed entire in either element"; from this came the inference that there was no need for the administration of both. The heaviness of a single chalice made the danger of spilling its contents so great that several chalices were used. This, however, only increased ...
— The Church and the Empire - Being an Outline of the History of the Church - from A.D. 1003 to A.D. 1304 • D. J. Medley

... some minutes to give it and Challoner's heart sank, for the man carefully arranged his points and the damaging inference could hardly be shirked. On the whole, his account agreed with Mrs. Chudleigh's, although it was more cleverly worked out, but there was nothing to be learned from Challoner's expression. He was now not dealing with a ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss

... as the palpable inference of that cunning glance was borne in upon him. The boy's voice had risen despite his efforts to hold it to a low whisper for what with the excitement of the adventure and his terror of the girl with the knife he had little or no control of himself, ...
— The Oakdale Affair • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... mother know this, for two reasons: one, that I may not be thought to arrogate to myself a discretion which does not belong to me; the other, that I may not suffer by the severe, but just inference she was pleased to draw; doubling my faults upon me, if I myself should act unworthy of the advice ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson

... the drift of his observations tended to the substitution of himself as the Head of the Government rather than to any change of Departments; and this he did not deny, when Lord Aberdeen pointed out the inference to ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria

... has been said, the inference may be drawn that Mr. Johnson came to the Vice-Presidency in the absence of any considerable degree of confidence on the part of the Republican Party, although there were no manifestations of serious doubt as to his fitness for ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 2 • George S. Boutwell

... of manner, which was matter of fact, to an unwontedness in love, which was matter of inference only. Incredules les plus credules. 'Elfride,' he said, 'had hardly looked upon a man till ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy

... little more delay on the part of our freakish visitor, they set forth together, old Moodie keeping a step or two behind Hollingsworth, so that the latter could not very conveniently look him in the face. I remained under the tuft of maples, doing my utmost to draw an inference from the scene that had just passed. In spite of Hollingsworth's off-hand explanation, it did not strike me that our strange guest was really beside himself, but only that his mind needed screwing up, like an instrument long out of tune, the strings ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... that her husband was more thoughtful and less talkative than usual. She asked, however, no direct question touching this change; but regarded what he did say with closer attention, hoping to draw a correct inference, without seeming to ...
— True Riches - Or, Wealth Without Wings • T.S. Arthur

... 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

... such a man? I then asserted the reasonableness of all that is. To this he agreed, reserving, however, one exception. He looked at me, as he said it, in a way I could not mistake. The inference was obvious. That he should be guilty of so cheap a quip in the midst of a serious ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London

... The natural inference from this remark was that he believed nothing more was to be apprehended from the Winnebagos, so long as our three friends were on their way to the cabin of the Hunters of the Ozark. The danger would now be transferred to ...
— The Hunters of the Ozark • Edward S. Ellis

... Prompt upon the inference came inspiration. I must win to the centre of the crowd, and a crowd is invariably indulgent to a drunkard. I hung out the glaring sign-board of crapulous glee. Lurching, hiccoughing, jostling, apologising to all and sundry with spacious incoherence, I plunged my way through the sightseers, and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... standing, and I make no doubt my own face went as red as theirs, for the taunt bit home. That inference of evil where no evil was, made an angrier man than was my wont. The two moved towards the door. I put ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut

... forward to prove the identity of their Gospels with those [supposed to have been] written in the first century. Let us listen to the opinion given by Bishop Marsh: "From the Epistle of Barnabas, no inference can be deduced that he had read any part of the New Testament. From the genuine epistle, as it is called, of Clement of Rome, it may be inferred that Clement had read the first Epistle to the Corinthians. From the Shepherd of ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant

... accomplished housebreakers, might at first be tempted to believe that the present form of the instrument has been arrived at by long-continued improvement in the hands of an almost infinite succession of thieves; but may not this inference be somewhat too hastily drawn? Have we any right to assume that burglars work by means analogous to those employed by other people? If any thief happened to pick up any crowbar which happened to be ever such a little better suited to his purpose than the one he had been in the habit of using ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler

... England is correct, and we base our ideas on reports made in Parliament and various documentary evidence; also such sketches as "London Labor and London Poor," which have been widely circulated among us. The inference, however, which we of the freedom party draw from it, is not that the slave is, on the whole, in the best condition because of this striking difference; that in America the slave has not a recognized human character in law, has not even an existence, whereas ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe

... nobody but himself; and even now, when questioned on the manner of possessing all your real estate, he gives out insinuations, which, instead of exonerating you, create a still worse impression against you. His conversation on the matter leaves the inference with your creditors that you have still more property secreted. Hence, mark me! it behoves you to keep close lips. Don't let your right hand know what your left does," continues the officer, in a tone of friendliness. ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams

... from Cyrus Robinson, he had said nothing about his wife's working upon them, but he knew that was the inference, and he did not contradict it. He forbade Belinda to mention the matter in one way or another. "The sarpent has got to feed the widows an' the orphans," he said, "an' that's a good reason for bein' ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... her one expressive look of gratitude. The senator was effectually silenced. He had come, by some inexplicable inference, to believe that Mrs. Cooke, while subservient to the despotic will of her husband, had been miraculously saved from depravity, and had set her face against this ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... There was also the alternative statement that Adonais, unequipped with the shield of wisdom or the spear of scorn, had been so rash as to 'dare the unpastured dragon in his den'; and from this the natural inference is that not any 'shaft which flies in darkness,' but the dragon himself, had slaughtered the too-venturous youth. But now we hear that he was done to death by poison. Certainly when we look beneath the symbol into the thing symbolized, we ...
— Adonais • Shelley

... nearest to my house, and had a key made. This implement I have as yet lacked either the courage or the opportunity to use. And now I think I shall throw it away.... No, I shan't. I refuse, after all, to draw my inference that the bulk of the British public writes always in the manner of this handbook. Even if they all have beautiful natures they must sometimes be sent slightly astray by inferior impulses, just as are ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm

... crowd; he is the representative of the exuberant energies of youth, turning, as with the instinct of nature for space and development, from the Old World to the New. That which may be called the interior meaning of the whole is sought to be completed by the inference that, whatever our wanderings, our happiness will always be found within a narrow compass, and amidst the objects more immediately within our reach, but that we are seldom sensible of this truth (hackneyed though it be in the ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... in fact, a pertinent illustration of Hamilton's remark, that "the phenomena of matter" [and of mind, he might add, treated by materialistic methods], "taken by themselves (you will observe the qualification, taken by themselves), so far from warranting any inference to the existence of a God, would, on the contrary, ground even an argument to his negation." Mr. Spencer, like Mr. Mill, denies the freedom of the will; and this, according to Hamilton, leads ...
— The Philosophy of the Conditioned • H. L. Mansel

... of authors that have 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

... changed your mind about this marriage," was Mr. Nailes' not unnatural inference, "and mean ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King

... laughed out, after having bit his lip with annoyance. "It was a natural inference of yours," he said, "but I assure you I was not thinking of your purse or my pocket. My father held it right never to undertake business for a stranger—unless a man was good, in a respectable point of view, and his cause was good, he did not mention it—and I have ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood

... exceedingly, and did not forget to tell Patimah's papa and mamma that they had always anticipated something of the sort. Haji Ali made no effort to regain possession of his wife, and his neighbours drawing a natural inference from his actions, avoided him and his sons until they were forced to live ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford

... so favourable to the stories that end unhappily. And we beg leave to reinforce this inference from them, That if the temporary sufferings of the Virtuous and the Good can be accounted for and justified on Pagan principles, many more and infinitely stronger reasons will occur to a Christian Reader in behalf of what are called unhappy Catastrophes ...
— Clarissa: Preface, Hints of Prefaces, and Postscript • Samuel Richardson

... erected on the southerly summit of Star Island, one of the Isles of Shoals. By a kind of irony of fortune, which Smith would have grimly appreciated, the only stone to perpetuate his fame stands upon a little heap of rocks in the sea; upon which it is only an inference that he ever set foot, and we can almost hear him say again, looking round upon this roomy earth, so much of which he possessed in his mind, "No lot for me but Smith's Isles, which are an array of barren rocks, the most overgrowne with shrubs and sharpe whins you can hardly passe ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... never be disproved. At the worst it must always remain in the position of an alternative hypothesis, which the hostile man of science cannot destroy, though he is under no obligation to adopt it. Broadly speaking, it is not the facts which are in dispute, but the inference to be drawn ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... and abject tone confirms the inference, drawn from an allusion which it contains, that it was written towards the close of the third year of Seneca's exile. He apologises for its style by saying that if it betrayed any weakness of thought or inelegance ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar

... of Savonarola, having declined to put the letters into any hands but his, and with consummate art had admitted that incidentally, and by inference, he was able so far to conjecture their purport as to believe they referred to a rendezvous outside the gates, in which case he urged that the Frate should seek an armed guard from the Signoria, and offered his services in carrying the request with the utmost privacy. ...
— Romola • George Eliot

... out, my good {p.022} fellow; what has put it into your head to be on so much ceremony with me all of a sudden? But, I see how it is, the result is given in one word—Disappointment.' My silence admitted his inference to the fullest extent. His countenance certainly did look rather blank for a few seconds; in truth, he had been wholly unprepared for the event; for it is a singular fact, that before the public, or rather the booksellers, had given their decision, he no more knew whether he had written ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart

... 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 social life as a people? Our Judges who administer the law are learned, of great ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1 • Various

... worry me. If only I 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, and the better for it—my ...
— Over Prairie Trails • Frederick Philip Grove

... mode of reasoning, common and indispensable as it is, needs to be employed with caution. There is always danger of inferring more than the facts warrant. When the inference is based on an inadequate induction of facts, the process is called "jumping at a conclusion,"—a mistake that is frequently made. Even large inductions are not always safe. We might conclude, for instance, that, because the bulldog, hound, mastiff, setter, spaniel, terrier, ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter

... partners have an average percentage of the remaining cards, the Third Hand is not justified in any such presumption, after the Dealer, by bidding one Spade, has virtually waved the red flag. True it is, a similar warning has appeared on the right, but if both danger signals are to be believed, the only inference is that the strength is massed on the left. The bidding by the Third Hand must, therefore, be of a very different character from that of the Dealer or Second Hand. He should not venture a No-trump unless he have four sure tricks with the probability of more and at least ...
— Auction of To-day • Milton C. Work

... soft and melodious, so much so as to lead to the inference that it differs very materially, if not radically, from the more southern Australian dialects which I have since had an opportunity of enquiring into. Their gesticulation is expressive, and their bearing manly and noble. They never speared a horse or sheep belonging to us and, judging ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey

... proper time. The loss in scattering one's powers is too great to contemplate with comfort. I had a witty partner who once remarked, "I have great respect for James Bunnell, for he has but one hobby at a time." I knew the inference. A man who has too many hobbies is not respectable. He is not even fair to the hobbies. I have always been overloaded and so not efficient. It is also my habit to hold on. It seems almost impossible to drop what ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock

... of a dying God, so frequent in Oriental legend, and of which we have already said much in former Degrees, was the natural inference from a literal interpretation of nature-worship; since nature, which in the vicissitudes of the seasons seems to undergo a dissolution, was to the earliest religionists the express image of the Deity, and at a remote period one and the same with the "varied God," whose attributes ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... 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 ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte

... the local clergy were divided; but they concurred in a general expression of regard to the principle of church independence, and their satisfaction that they themselves enjoyed the liberty for which their brethren were obliged to contend,—thus leaving to inference their religious connection, and giving no ground to call in question the ecclesiastical status and revenues conferred by the church act. This answer was considered by the free church evasive; and its more ardent supporters on the spot pronounced the course of the local presbytery jesuitical ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West

... have proceeded in the delicate mission, or how much champagne their modest consideration has cost, the public have not yet been informed. Rumor says every thing is favorable. We are only drawing from a few principal points, and shall leave the reader to draw his own inference of the moral complexion of our social being. We make but one more view, and ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams

... usually by a process of 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 known to ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee

... millions of cubic geographical miles of oxygen, and that 12,500 cubic geographical miles of carbonic acid have been breathed out into the air or otherwise given out in the course of five thousand years. The inference, then, should be, that the latter exists in the air in the proportion of 1 to 160, whereas we find but 4 parts in 10,000. Dumas and Bossingault decided that no change had taken place, verifying their conclusion by experiments founded ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various

... 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 of ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train

... the first time, but assumes a general though vague belief in such a being. This belief evidently existed among the Jews when Christ came. It as evidently was not taught in the Old Testament. The inevitable inference is that it grew up in the Jewish mind from its communication with ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke

... his nephew; this nephew was known to have been much enamoured of the girl Coira O'Hara; Coira O'Hara was said to be living—with her father, probably—in the house on the outskirts of Paris, where she was visited by Captain Stewart. Was not the inference plain enough—sufficiently reasonable? It left, without doubt, many puzzling things to be explained—perhaps too many; but Ste. Marie sat forward in his seat, his eyes gleaming, ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman

... we hold Jesus up as an example, when we perceive the assumption of clergymen, that all who venture to dissent from a given interpretation, must necessarily be infidels; and thus denounce them as infidels; for it was only by inference, that one clergyman this afternoon made Joseph Barker deny the Son of God. By inference in the same way, he might be made to deny everything that is good, and ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... study Astrology, the inference that I draw from the connection of these two parts of the hand will ...
— Palmistry for All • Cheiro

... others who study our non-rational mental processes can so play upon them as to make us form absurd beliefs. The empirical art of politics consists largely in the creation of opinion by the deliberate exploitation of subconscious non-rational inference. The process of inference may go on beyond the point desired by the politician who started it, and is as likely to take place in the mind of a passive newspaper-reader as among the members of ...
— Human Nature In Politics - Third Edition • Graham Wallas

... the dressing hour in a bedroom to a time of travelling out of doors—lent to the idle deed a novelty it did not intrinsically possess. The picture was a delicate one. Woman's prescriptive infirmity had stalked into the sunlight, which had clothed it in the freshness of an originality. A cynical inference was irresistible by Gabriel Oak as he regarded the scene, generous though he fain would have been. There was no necessity whatever for her looking in the glass. She did not adjust her hat, or pat her hair, or press a dimple into shape, ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy

... Kabala—notwithstanding. But far even as those superior Intelligences have investigated (or, if preferred, are alleged to have investigated), and remotely as they may have searched by the help of inference and analogy, even They have failed to discover in the Infinity anything permanent but—SPACE. ALL IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE. Reflection, therefore, will easily suggest to the reader the further logical inference that in ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various

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

... Romanists to submit to the decision of the Church in matters of faith must be rejected, that, on the contrary, everything must be subordinated to the Holy Scriptures. (Plitt, 87.) In drawing up the Apology, however, Melanchthon made little, if any, use of Osiander's work. Such, at least, is the inference Kolde draws from Melanchthon's words to Camerarius, September 20: "Your citizens [of Nuernberg] have sent us a book on the same subject [answer to the Confutation], which I hope before long to discuss with you orally." (383.) There can be little ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente

... was 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 constantly under the auspices of Trajan. The use of the past ...
— Germania and Agricola • Caius Cornelius Tacitus

... of the reign of Edward the Third. "Rhymes of Robin Hood" are then spoken of by the author of "Piers Ploughman" (assigned to about 1362) as better known to idle fellows than pious songs, and from the manner of the allusion it is a just inference that such rhymes were at that time no novelties. The next notice is in Wyntown's Scottish Chronicle, written about 1420, where the following lines occur—without any connection, and in the form of an entry—under ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various

... first, in its bearing on Jesus' claims. He was condemned by the priests on the theocratic charge of blasphemy, because He made Himself the Son of God. He was sentenced by Pilate on the civil charge of rebellion, which the priests brought against Him as an inference necessarily resulting from His claim to be the Son of God. They drew the same conclusion as Nathanael did long before: 'Rabbi, Thou art the Son of God,' and therefore 'Thou art the King of Israel.' And they were so far right that if the former designation is correct, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren

... can be used I think as an argument for evolution. It is the resemblances that the animals or plants in any group have in common that is the basis for such a conclusion; it is not because we can arrange in a continuous series any particular variations. In other words, our inference concerning the common descent of two or more species is based on the totality of such resemblances that still remain in large part after each change has taken place. In this sense the argument from comparative anatomy, while not a demonstration, ...
— A Critique of the Theory of Evolution • Thomas Hunt Morgan

... that's given up its gas to read by Electricity Would naturally be repelled by THACKERAY'S causticity, And scorn the characters of SCOTT, because they had Glengarries on, An inference which ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, May 13, 1893 • Various

... the Curate, bending anxiously forward to look into her eyes. He was inexpressibly moved and agitated by the inference, which perhaps no listener less intensely concerned would have drawn from what Lucy said. He could not bear that she should have any trouble which he might not do something to relieve ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant

... reduced him to something like equivocation. She wanted to know if anything could be more splendid than Mr. Bradley as Lord Ingleton; she confided to Stephen that that was what she called REAL wickedness, the kind that did the most harm, and invited him by inference, to a liberal judgment of stupid sinners. He sat emitting short unsmiling sentences with eyes nervously fugitive from Lady Dolly's too proximate opulence until the third act began. Then he gave place with embarrassed alacrity to Colonel Cummins, and folded ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)

... as Dr. Davy admitted that there were no prevalent sensible states of the atmosphere to which the cholera could be attributed, he, therefore, believed it to have been propagated by contagion, an inference which we now see must be quite wide of the mark. Dr. Hawkins had, it appears, like many other medical gentlemen, access to the reports from Ceylon, &c., in the office of the chief of the army medical department in London, and it is to be regretted I think that, with respect to one of the ...
— Letters on the Cholera Morbus. • James Gillkrest

... of Levanto, I landed not on earth but—with one jump—in Hell. The Turks figure forth a Hell of ice and snow; this is my present abode; its name is Siena. Every one knows that this town lies on a hill, on three hills; the inference that it would be cold in January was fairly obvious; how cold, nobody could have guessed. The sun is invisible. Streets are deep in snow. Icicles hang from the windows. Worst of all, the hotels are unheated. ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas

... more dollars and cents than he can digest.' 'I am an American citizen,' says Alden, with great dignity; 'I am Secretary to our Legation at the Court of St. James.' 'The devil you are,' said Abernethy; "then you'll soon get rid of your dyspepsy.' 'I don't see that 'ere inference,' said Alden, 'it don't follow from what you predicate at all; it ain't a natural consequence, I guess, that a man should cease to be ill because he is called by the voice of a free and enlightened people to fill ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton



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



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