(Gr. λόγος, Lat. ratio, Fr. raiso, Ger. vernunft), is a word of very various signification. Passing by its employment in most languages for cause, motive, argument, principle of probation, or middle term of a syllogism, it is found employed by various philosophers, and often to a greater or less extent by the same philosopher, in the following five significations:—1. It has been used both in ancient and modern times to denote our intelligent nature generally. In this sense of the word it comprehends,— (a.) Conception, or simple apprehension (ἐννοήσις, νόησις τῆς ἀναπτυξίδος, conceptus, conceptio, apprehensio simplex, das Begriifen); (b.) Judgment (ἀναγνώρισις, judicium); (c.) Reasoning, or the Discursive faculty (διάνοια, λόγος, λογισμός, το εὐλογεῖσθαι, discursus, ratiocinatio); (d.) Intellect, or intelligence proper, either as the intuition or as the place of principles (νοῦς, intellectus, intelligentia, mens). 2. In close connection with the preceding signification, from which perhaps it ought not to be separated, is that meaning in which it is used to characterize the legitimate employment of our faculties in general. 3. It has been employed to denote the third and fourth of the above-mentioned functions,—viz., the diazoetic and the noetic. 4. It has been very generally used for the third of the above special functions, reason and reasoning being thus confounded. 5. It signifies the noetic in contrast to the diazoetic faculties, and especially with Kant and his school, who divide reason (vernuuft) exclusively and emphatically from understanding (verständ). This abusive use of the word, for the faculty of the unconditioned, determined its adoption in the philosophy of Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel. (See note A by Sir William Hamilton, in his edition of Dr Reid's Works; also the article Metaphysics.)