Such is the interpretation that all peoples, ages, and languages have put on the word Reason. It has always been understood to mean the possession of general, abstract, non-intuitive ideas, named =concepts=, which are denoted and fixed by means of words. This faculty alone it is which in reality gives to men their advantage over animals. For these abstract ideas, or concepts, that is, mental impressions formed of the sum of many separate things, are the condition of =language= and through it of actual =thought=; through which again they determine the consciousness not only of the present (which animals also have), but of the past and the future as such; whence it results that they are the _modulus_, so to say, of clear recollection, of circumspection, of foresight, and of intention; the constant factor in the evolution of systematic co-operation, of the state, of trades, arts, sciences, religions, and philosophies, in short, of everything that so sharply distinguishes human from animal life. Beasts have only intuitive ideas, and therefore also only intuitive motives; consequently the dependence of their volition on motives is manifest. With man this dependence is no less a fact; he, too (with due allowance for individual character), is affected by motives under the strictest law of necessity. Only these are for the most part not _intuitive_ but _abstract_ ideas, that is, conceptions, or thoughts, which nevertheless are the result of previous intuitions, hence of external influences. This, however, gives him a relative freedom--relative, that is, as compared with an animal. For his action is not determined (as it is in all other creatures) by the surroundings of the moment as intuitively perceived, but by the thoughts he has derived from experience, or gained by instruction. Consequently the motive, by which he, too, is necessarily swayed, is not always at once obvious to the looker-on simultaneously with the act; it lies concealed in the brain. It is this that lends to all his movements, as well as to his conduct and work as a whole, a character manifestly different from that observable in the habits of beasts. He seems as though guided by finer, invisible threads; whence all his acts bear the stamp of deliberation and premeditation, thus gaining an appearance of independence, which sufficiently distinguishes them from those of animals. All these great differences, however, spring solely out of the capacity for =abstract ideas, concepts=. This capacity is therefore the essential part of =Reason=, that is, of the faculty peculiar to man, and it is called _το λόγιμον_,[16] _το λογιστικον,_ =ratio, la ragione, il discorso, raison, reason, discourse of reason=. If I were asked what the distinction is between it and =Verstand=, _νοῡς_, =intellectus, entendement, understanding=; I should reply thus: The latter is that capacity for knowledge which animals also possess in varying degrees, and which