proof that is demanded of this principle itself pre-supposes something else, such as the logical laws of proof; these rules of logic are, however, themselves propositions such as required to be proved; and so it goes on into infinitude, if an absolute hypothesis to which another can be opposed is not made (_supra_, p. 362). But these forms of proposition, of consecutive proof, &c., do not in this form apply to what is speculative (_supra_, p. 364) as though the proposition were before us here, and the proof were something separate from it there; for in this case the proof comes within the proposition. The Notion is a self-movement, and not, as in a proposition, a desire to rest; nor is it true that the proof brings forward another ground or middle term and is another movement; for it has this movement in itself. Sextus Empiricus (adv. Math. VII., 310-312), for example, thus reaches the speculative Idea regarding reason, which, as the thought of thought, comprehends itself, and is thus in its freedom at home with itself. We saw this (pp. 147-151) with Aristotle. In order to refute this idea, Sextus argues in the following way: “The reason that comprehends is either the whole or it is only a part.” But to know the speculative it is requisite that there should be, besides the ‘either ... or,’ a third; this last is ‘both ... and’ and ‘neither ... nor.’ “If reason as the comprehending is the whole, nothing else remains to be comprehended. If the comprehending reason is, however, only a part which comprehends itself, this part again, as that which comprehends, either is the whole (and in that case again nothing at all remains to be comprehended), or else, supposing what comprehends to be a part in the sense that what is comprehended is the other part, that which comprehends does not comprehend itself,” &c. In the first place, however, it is clear that by arguing thus nothing is shown further than the fact that here Scepticism in the first place brings into the relationship of thought thinking about thought, the very superficial category of the relationship of the whole and the parts, as understood by the ordinary understanding, which last is not found in that Idea, although as regards finite things the whole is simply composed of all the parts, and these parts constitute the whole, the parts and the whole being consequently identical. But the relationship of whole and part is not a relationship of reason to itself, being much too unimportant, and quite unworthy of being brought into the speculative Idea. In the second place Scepticism is wrong in allowing this relationship to hold good immediately, as it does in the ordinary and arid conception, where we make no objection to it. When reflection speaks of a whole, there is for it beyond this nothing else remaining. But the whole is just the being opposed to itself. On the one hand it is as whole simply identical with its parts, and, on the other