A WORD A DAY.

Southland Times, Issue 21581, 19 December 1931, Page 6

A WORD A DAY.

INFERENCE. An inference is a mental experiment; it is a reasoning from something known or assumed to something else which follows from it. The Latin in and ferre combine to mean “to bring or carry in”; hence the formation of a belief or opinion as the result of judgments brought in to one is an inference. It is said that “when a child first draws an inference or experiences the force of an inference drawn by another, we may call this the birth of reason.” The word “inference” is used both for the process of inferring and for the connecting link between premises and conclusions, as well as for the conclusion itself. If in reaching a conclusion we argue to something already implied, we call the inference deductive; if not, it is inductive. “Inference” and “assumption” are not identical: the latter is something taken for granted without proof; the former is a conclusion logically drawn from data or premises. Colloquially, inference means little more than a guess; this use should be avoided. The first syllable of in-fer-ence is accented. Sound ias in it, first eas in maker, second e as in end. “In almost every act of our perceiving faculties, observation and inference are intimately blended.”