Logical thought, as its name implies, relies on the use of words, few of which have one precise and exclusive meaning but can be used in metaphorical and allegorical senses often, intentionally or otherwise, ambivalent. The tedious and prolix system of medieval disputation showed how differences of interpretation of quite simple propositions could over time be narrowed but never completely resolved. For one’s own personal use a group of words might prompt recall of an idea or argument, but there can be no guarantee that any number of words can precisely convey it to others.

Intuitive thought, by contrast, can strike one in an instant and persist in memory without recourse to words to describe it. To that extent it may be accessible in some degree to the whole animal kingdom as evience of intelligence, though not intellect. Only the measured response to it, for good or ill, dictated by a logical process is evidence of that.