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Knowladge which is not the result of conscious reasoning or of immediate sense perception.
In the litereture dealing which intuition, one comesacross such exspression as “immediate
feeling of certainty” “imagination touched with conviction” a “total response” to some “total
situation” and a “direct insight into the truth“ we may note the following possitions which
men hold regarding intuition.

1 There is an element of intuitian present in all knowladge. George Santayana uses

intuition to mean out our awareness of the immediate data of consciousness. W. E.
Hocking speaks of self-knowledge as the “best case for instuition. “knowledge of
oneself appearsto be present as an element in all knowledge of other objects. When I
hear a whistle, in addition to hearing it. I am aware of my hearingand aware of myself
as the one who does the hearing intuition is present in the knowladge of oneself and
one’s own life, and the axsioms of mathematics. It is present in our understanding of
the connections between the propositions which constitute the various steps ofan
argument. Reasoning itself depands on some connection that we grasp or fail to grasp.
An intuitive element is the foundation of our recognition of the beautiful, of the moral
standard which men accept, and of religius values.
2 Intuition is the accummulation of one’s part exsperience and thinking. Valid intuitions
are short cuts to the knowladge which the senses and reflective thinking would reveal.
They are the outcome of subconscious induction or deduction. Those who have had
considerable experience. In think ing and working in a field are more likely to have
good intuitions in that area of human experience. Scientific insight comes to those
who have labored persistently over scientific problems; poetic inspirations come to
those who love and the read poetry; musical inspirations come to those who devote
time and attention to these fields.
3 Instuition is a higher kind of knowledge, different in nature from that disclosed by the
senses or by the intellect. The outstanding represantive of this point of view is Henri
Bergson (1859-1941), the French philosopher. For Bergson intutition and intelegence
are pointed in opposite directions. Intellegence, or intellect, is the tool science uses to
deal with matter. It deals with things and with quantitave relations. It solidifies
whatever it touches and is incapable of dealingwith the nature of life or with duration,.
Intuition, which instinct that has become self-conscious, can lead us to the very
inwardness of life. If intuition can extend it self, it will give us the clue to vital
operations. We discover the clean vital, the vital impulse of the world,