correctly, some half mystical super sense, some vague(and, in
essence, infra-human) instinct.


The true nature of this alleged instinct, however, is revealed by an
examination of the situations which inspire a man to call it to his aid.
These situations do not arise out of the purely technical problems
that are his daily concern, but out of the rarer and more
fundamental, and hence enormously more difficult problems which
beset him only at long and irregular intervals, and go offer a test,
not of his mere capacity for being drilled, but of his capacity for
genuine ratiocination. No man, I take it, save one consciously
inferior and hen-pecked, would consult his wife about hiring a clerk,
or about extending credit to some paltry customer, or about some
routine piece of tawdry swindling; but not even the most egoistic
man would fail to sound the sentiment of his wife about taking a
partner into his business, or about standing for public office, or
about combating unfair and ruinous competition, or about marrying
off their daughter. Such things are of massive importance; they lie
at the foundation of well-being; they call for the best thought that
the, man confronted by them can muster; the perils hidden in a
wrong decision overcome even the clamors of vanity. It is in such
situations that the superior mental grasp of women is of obvious
utility, and has to be admitted. It is here that they rise above the
insignificant sentimentalities, superstitions and formulae of men, and
apply to the business their singular talent for separating the
appearance from the substance, and so exercise what is called their
intuition.