Thus all that is _material_ in our knowledge: that is to say, all that cannot be reduced to subjective _form_, to individual mode of activity, to functions of our intellect,--its whole _material_ therefore,--comes from outside; that is, in the last resort, from the objective perception of the corporeal world, which has its origin in sensation. Now it is this intuitive and, so far as material content is concerned, empirical knowledge, which _Reason_--_real_ Reason--works up into conceptions, which it fixes sensuously by means of words; these conceptions then supply the materials for its endless combinations through judgments and conclusions, which constitute the weft of our thought-world. _Reason_ therefore has absolutely no _material_, but merely a _formal_, content, and this is the object-matter of Logic, which consequently contains only forms and rules for thinking operations. In reflecting, Reason is absolutely forced to take its material contents from outside, _i.e._, from the intuitive representations which the Understanding has created. Its functions are exercised on them, first of all, in forming _conceptions_, by dropping some of the various qualities of things while retaining others, which are then connected together to a conception. Representations, however, forfeit their capacity for being intuitively perceived by this process, while they become easier to deal with, as has already been shown. It is therefore in this, and in this alone, that the efficiency of Reason consists; whereas it can never supply _material content from its own resources_.--It has nothing but forms: its nature is feminine; it only conceives, but does not generate. It is not by mere chance that the Reason is feminine in all Latin, as well as Teutonic, languages; whereas the Understanding is invariably masculine.