3. The act of inferring takes place naturally, i.e., without intention. It is at first something we do, not something which we _mean_ to do. We do it as we breathe or walk or gesture. Only after it is done do we notice it and reflect upon it--and the great mass of men no more reflect upon it after its occurrence than they reflect upon the process of walking and try to discover its conditions and mechanism. That an individual, an animal organism, a man or a woman performs the acts is to say something capable of direct proof through appeal to observation; to say that something called mind, or consciousness does it is itself to employ inference and dubious inference. The fact of inference is much surer, in other words, than that of a particular inference, such as that to something called reason or consciousness, in connection with it; save as mind is but another word for the fact of inference, in which case of course it cannot be re-referred to as its cause, source, or author. Moreover, by all principles of science, inference cannot be referred to mind or consciousness as its condition, unless there is _independent_ proof of the existence of that mind to which it is referred. Prima facie we are conscious or aware _of_ inference precisely as we are of anything else, not by introspection of something within the very consciousness which is supposed to be its source, but by observation of something taking place in the world--as we are conscious of walking _after_ we have walked. After it has been done naturally--or "unconsciously"--it may be done "consciously," that is, with intent or on purpose. But this means that it is done _with_ consciousness (whatever consciousness may be discovered to mean), not that it is done _by_ consciousness. Now if other natural events characteristic only (so far as can be ascertained) of highly organized beings are marked by unique or by distinctive traits, there is good ground for the assumption that inference will be so marked. As we do not find the circulation of blood or the stimulation of nerves in a stone, and as we expect as a matter of course to find peculiar conditions, qualities, and consequences in the being where such operations occur, so we do not find the act of inference in a stone, and we expect peculiar conditions, qualities, and consequences in whatever beings perform the act. Unless, in other words, all the ordinary canons of inquiry are suspended, inference is not an isolated nor a merely formal event. As against the latter, it has its own distinctive structure and properties; as against the former, it has specific generating conditions and specific results.