(2) Scepticism should not be looked upon merely as a doctrine of doubt. It would be more correct to say that the Sceptic has no doubt of his point, which is the nothingness of all finite existence. He who only doubts still clings to the hope that his doubt may be resolved, and that one or other of the definite views, between which he wavers, will turn out solid and true. Scepticism properly so called is a very different thing: it is complete hopelessness about all which understanding counts stable, and the feeling to which it gives birth is one of unbroken calmness and inward repose. Such at least is the noble Scepticism of antiquity, especially as exhibited in the writings of Sextus Empiricus, when in the later times of Rome it had been systematised as a complement to the dogmatic systems of Stoic and Epicurean. Of far other stamp, and to be strictly distinguished from it, is the modern Scepticism already mentioned § (39), which partly preceded the Critical Philosophy, and partly sprung out of it. That later Scepticism consisted solely in denying the truth and certitude of the super-sensible, and in pointing to the facts of sense and of immediate sensations as what we have to keep to. Even to this day Scepticism is often spoken of as the irresistible enemy of all positive knowledge, and hence of philosophy, in so far as philosophy is concerned with positive knowledge. But in these statements there is a misconception. It is only the finite thought of abstract understanding which has to fear Scepticism, because unable to withstand it: philosophy includes the sceptical principle as a subordinate function of its own, in the shape of Dialectic. In contradistinction to mere Scepticism, however, philosophy does not remain content with the purely negative result of Dialectic. The sceptic mistakes the true value of his result, when he supposes it to be no more than a negation pure and simple. For the negative, which emerges as the result of dialectic, is, because a result, at the same time the positive: it contains what it results from, absorbed into itself, and made part of its own nature. Thus conceived, however, the dialectical stage has the features characterising the third grade of logical truth, the speculative form, or form of positive reason. 82.] (y) The Speculative stage, or stage of Positive Reason, apprehends the unity of terms (propositions) in their opposition,--the affirmative, which is involved in their disintegration and in their transition.