Definition of "nous"

I feel the will to roam, to learnBy test, experience, nous,That fire is hot and ocean deep,And wolves carnivorous.

1900, Gilbert Keith Chesterton, On the Disastrous Spread of Aestheticism in all Classes

There is nothing original in absent-mindedness. True originally lies elsewhere. Really, the lower classes have no nous.

1907, E.M. Forster, The Longest Journey, Uniform edition, Edward Arnold, Part I, I, page 19