Shak.
The reason of the motion of the balance in a wheel watch is by the
motion of the next wheel.
Sir M. Hale.
This reason did the ancient fathers render, why the church was
called "catholic."
Bp. Pearson.
Virtue and vice are not arbitrary things; but there is a natural
and eternal reason for that goodness and virtue, and against vice
and wickedness.
Tillotson.
2. The faculty or capacity of the human mind by which it is
distinguished from the intelligence of the inferior animals; the higher
as distinguished from the lower cognitive faculties, sense,
imagination, and memory, and in contrast to the feelings and desires.
Reason comprises conception, judgment, reasoning, and the intuitional
faculty. Specifically, it is the intuitional faculty, or the faculty of
first truths, as distinguished from the understanding, which is called
the discursive or ratiocinative faculty.
We have no other faculties of perceiving or knowing anything divine
or human, but by our five senses and our reason.
P. Browne.
In common and popular discourse, reason denotes that power by which
we distinguish truth from falsehood, and right from wrong, and by
which we are enabled to combine means for the attainment of
particular ends.
Stewart.
Reason is used sometimes to express the whole of those powers which
elevate man above the brutes, and constitute his rational nature,
more especially, perhaps, his intellectual powers; sometimes to
express the power of deduction or argumentation.
Stewart.
By the pure reason I mean the power by which we become possessed of
principles.
Coleridge.
The sense perceives; the understanding, in its own peculiar
operation, conceives; the reason, or rationalized understanding,
comprehends.
Coleridge.
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3. Due exercise of the reasoning faculty; accordance with, or that
which is accordant with and ratified by, the mind rightly exercised;
right intellectual judgment; clear and fair deductions from true
principles; that which is dictated or supported by the common sense of
mankind; right conduct; right; propriety; justice.