Page:On the Fourfold Root, and On the Will in Nature.djvu/169

 chance that the Reason is feminine in all Latin, as well as Teutonic, languages ; whereas the Understanding is invariably masculine.

In using such expressions as 'sound Reason teaches this' or 'Reason should control passion,' we by no means imply that Reason furnishes material knowledge out of its own resources ; but rather do we point to the results of rational reflection, that is, to logical inference from principles which abstract knowledge has gradually gathered from experience and by which we obtain a clear and comprehensive view, not only of what is empirically necessary, and may therefore, the case occurring, be foreseen, but even of the reasons and consequences of our own deeds also. Reasonable or rational is everywhere synonymous with consistent or logical, and conversely ; for Logic is only Reason's natural procedure itself, expressed in a system of rules ; therefore these expressions (rational and logical) stand in the same relation to one another as theory and practice. Exactly in this same sense too, when we speak of a reasonable conduct, we mean by it one which is quite consistent, one therefore which proceeds from general conceptions, and is not determined by the transitory impression of the moment. By this, however, the morality of such conduct is in no wise determined : it may be good or bad indifferently. Detailed explanations of all this are to be found in my "Critique of Kant's Philosophy," and also in my "Fundamental Problems of Ethics." Notions derived from pure Reason are, lastly, those which have their source in the Formal part, whether intuitive or reflective, of our cognitive faculty ; those, consequently, which we are able to bring to our consciousness a priori, that is, without