2. KNOWING BY INTUITION.
It has been affirmed that intuition is the process involved when the mind knows instantly.[2]
ILLUSTRATIONS:
(1) As I raise my eyes a figure comes to view. My mind knows instantly that it is the figure three. (2) The ear catches immediately a tune which is being sung in the room below. Without deliberation the mind recognizes the tune as America. The mind may thus know by intuition through any one of the five senses. These are the wires of connection between the outer world and the mind within and transmission over these wires may be instantaneous or intuitive. This is not all. (3) My mind may center its attention on itself and may recognize there a mental picture or image of a pet dog. Since this activity is without any apparent deliberation the process must be intuitive. To define intuitive knowledge as that which comes to the mind through the senses only is incorrect, as it leaves out altogether the knowledge the mind may obtain of its own activity as in illustration “(3).”
Knowledge is anything known. Intuitive knowledge is knowledge which comes to the mind immediately by direct observation. The field for intuitive knowledge may be the external world or the internal world though, of course, the former is the more common ground. It is here that the mind by intuition secures the most of its raw material which, through the process of thinking, is worked over into a connected, unified system of lasting value.
The intuitions are the beginning and the basis of all knowledge, and knowledge gained by intuition is the basis of all thinking.