Modern positivism may be briefly characterized as the application of the definition of the “concept” in general to the _I_-concept in particular. As the concept in general can be represented, “read” as a procedure appertaining to the economy of thought, so here in a frankly unexampled dis-actualizing of actuality, the _I_-concept is to be “read” as a procedure appertaining to the economy of thought. But here even the slightest attempt to think _in terms of actuality_, forthwith conducts into the absurd. For an _I_-unity must first be given in order that it may comprehend itself as an _I_-unity. On the other hand, were the _I_-concept purely a procedure in the economy of thought, what is there to prevent the thought-economy once in a while from demanding to read me as an _I_-duality? a thing that has so far never been entertained in the brains of thinking men, but only in the cells of lunatic asylums. Positivism is overtaken by the same fate that overtakes every criticism, as, for example, that of Hume,--commonly and incorrectly called scepticism,--it finds no substratum for the _I_-concept. And the keener its search, the more critical its procedure, the more thorough its unravelling, the more is it strengthened in this its mental representation. With this, pure criticism has no more that it can do. It must even content itself with this negative result. Positivism, however, seeks to round out this negative result into a world-theory and so obtain its world consisting of elements of sensation--a world in which there is no clearly outlined, definitely determined _I_ at all. From a starting-point of this peculiar kind there follows, on one hand, such a similarity of expression on the part of both, as to produce an almost uncanny effect. On the other hand, however, there is such a difference in essence as could scarcely be more pronounced. In brief: modern positivism is the faithful mirror-image of the Buddha-thought, and thereby accomplishes in the dis-actualizing of actuality what only thought can accomplish at all. In the Saŋyutta Nikāya a monk asks the Buddha, “Who has contact? who has sensation?” To whom the Buddha replies, “The question is not admissible. I do not say, ‘He has contact.’ Did I say, ‘He has contact,’ then the question, ‘Who has contact, Reverend Sir?’ would be admissible. Since, however, I do not say so, then of me that do not speak thus, it is only admissible to ask, ‘From what, Reverend Sir, does contact proceed?’” In close correspondence with this, one reads in E. Mach’s _Analyse der Empfindungen_, “If a knowledge of the continuity of the elements (sensations) leaves us unsatisfied and we ask, ‘_Who_ has this continuity of the sensations? _who_ experiences sensation?’ we are dominated by the old habit of classifying each element (sensation) as an item in an unanalysed complex, and thereby unwittingly descend to the older, lower, more limited point of view.”