And let the coming of the event be first of all suggested by some present external fact or sign.

Suppose, for example, that the sky is heavy, the air sultry, and that I have a bad headache; I confidently anticipate a thunderstorm.

It would commonly be said that such an expectation is a kind of inference from the past.

I remember that these appearances have been followed by a thunderstorm very often, and I infer that they will in this new case be so followed.
To this, however, it may be replied that in most cases there is no conscious going back to the past at all.

As I have already remarked, anticipation is pretty certainly in advance of memory in early life.