It has been affirmed that intuition is the process involved when the mind knows _instantly_.[2]
(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.
It is claimed that _think_ comes from the same root as _thick_. From this one would conclude that the process of thinking is virtually a process of thickening. Surely as one thinks he enriches or thickens his knowledge. As one thinks percepts into concepts and concepts into judgments he makes richer in meaning the various notions concerned. Thinking is largely a matter of pressing many into one: of linking together the disconnected fragments of the conscious field.
_Thinking is the deliberative process of affirming or denying connections._
The same idea may be expressed in a variety of ways as the following indicate.
(1) “Thinking is the conscious adjustment of a means to an end in problematic situations.” Miller.