This general idea is the only one which is interesting in the Stoics, but even in this very principle, limitations are found to be present. It merely expresses the truth as subsisting in the object, as thought of, yet for that very reason it is still a very formal determination, or not in itself the real Idea. From this point of view Sextus Empiricus (adv. Math. X. 183) examines the Stoics, and he considers and discusses them in all sorts of ways. The most striking thing that he says is what relates to the following. The fact that anything is, rests in its being thought—the fact that it is thought in something being there; the one is the pre-supposition of the other. That is to say, the Stoics assert that a thing exists, not because it is, but through thought; but consciousness for its existence requires another, for thought is likewise one-sided. In this criticism by Sextus it is indicated that thought requires an object as an external to which it gives its approbation. There can be no talk of its being here indicated that the thinking mind in order to exist as consciousness does not require the object; this is really inherent in its conception. But the “this” of the object as an external is only a moment which is not the only one or the essential. It is the manifestation of mind, and mind exists only in that it appears; this therefore must come to pass in it, that it must have its object as external and give its approbation to it—that is, it must withdraw from this relationship into itself and therein recognize its unity. But likewise, having gone into itself, it has now from itself to beget its object and give itself the content which it sends forth from itself. Stoicism is only this return of mind into itself, positing the unity of itself and the object, and recognizing the harmony; but not the going forth again to the extension of the real knowledge of a content from itself. We do not find Stoicism getting any farther, for it stops short at making the consciousness of this unity its object, without developing it in the slightest; thus reason remains the simple form which does not go on to the distinction of the content itself. Hence the formalism of this celebrated standard, and of the standpoint from which all truth of content is judged, rests farther in the fact that the thought of thought, as what is highest, finds this content indeed conformable to itself and appropriates it, since it transforms it into the universal, but its determinations are given. For if thought predominates, still it is always universal form alone. On account of this universality thought yields nothing but the form of identity with itself; the ultimate criterion is thus only the formal identity of the thought which discovers harmony. But it may be asked, with what? For there no absolute self-determination, no content that proceeds from thought as such is to be found; and hence everything may harmonize with my thought. The criterion of the Stoics is consequently only the principle of contradiction; yet when we remove the contradiction from absolute reality, it is indeed self-identical, but for that very reason empty. The harmony must be a higher one; there must be harmony with self in what is other than self, in content, in determination; and thus it must be harmony with harmony.