(from *esse*, to be), in *Metaphysics*, entity, being, existence. This the schoolmen call *ens reale* and *ens positivum*, to distinguish it from their *ens rationis*, which exists but in the imagination.

a town in the Austrian province of the Upper Ens, situated on a steep bank, near the junction of the Ens with the Danube, 10 miles S.E. of Linz. It is surrounded by old walls, and has some manufactures of iron and steel. Pop. 3500. Ens was the headquarters of Napoleon in 1809.

or ENNS, a river of Austria, falling into the Danube. It forms the boundary between the two provinces of the Lower and Upper Ens, commonly called Lower and Upper Austria, and constituting the Archduchy of Austria. See AUSTRIA.