CHAPTER VI.
CONDITIONS OF IMMEDIATE INFERENCE Sec.1.The word Inference is used in two different senses, which are often confused but should be carefully distinguished.

In the first sense, it means a process of thought or reasoning by which the mind passes from facts or statements presented, to some opinion or expectation.

The data may be very vague and slight, prompting no more than a guess or surmise; as when we look up at the sky and form some expectation about the weather, or from the trick of a man's face entertain some prejudice as to his character.

Or the data may be important and strongly significant, like the footprint that frightened Crusoe into thinking of cannibals, or as when news of war makes the city expect that Consols will fall.

These are examples of the act of inferring, or of inference as a process; and with inference in this sense Logic has nothing to do; it belongs to Psychology to explain how it is that our minds pass from one perception or thought to another thought, and how we come to conjecture, conclude and believe (_cf._ chap.i.Sec.