[Sidenote: _Empiricism_] The representatives of empiricism are on the other hand most numerous, now as in the past; so much so that empiricism sometimes seems to be the sole adversary of philosophy, and the true origin of all philosophic errors. This opinion is without doubt inexact, but it finds support in the fact that philosophy is obliged to defend itself from the incessant assaults of empiricism, more than from any other enemy. The confusion between pure and empirical concepts is, indeed, easy, since both have the form of universality (though the universality of the second is falsely assumed) and both refer to the concept (though in the second the concept is something arbitrarily limited). The empiricist is like the philosopher, in so far as he immerses himself in facts and constructs concepts. [Sidenote: _Positivism, philosophy founded upon the sciences, inductive metaphysic._] The last great historical manifestation of empiricism is that which, from the system of Auguste Comte, took the name of _positivism_ and by its very name expressed the intention of basing itself upon facts (that is, upon facts historically certified), in order to classify them, thus reducing philosophy to a classification. This, like all classifications, proceeded from the poorest to the richest, from the abstract gradually to the less abstract, though never to the concrete. Positivism did not seem to be aware that the facts from which it proposed to proceed and which it believed to be the rough material of experience, were already _philosophic determinations,_ and could only in this way be admitted as _historically ascertained. Psychologist_ is also positivism; positivism, that is to say, more properly applied to the group of the so-called mental and moral sciences. _Neocriticism_ can be almost altogether identified with positivism, although its upholders generally possess some knowledge of philosophical history (which is altogether lacking to the pure positivists), and this confers a more specious polish on their doctrine. Neocriticism, indeed, tends to eliminate every speculative element from the Kantian criticism, and by so doing approaches positivism--so as almost to become confounded with it. It is no wonder, therefore, that from the camp of the neocritics should have originated the proclamation and programme of _a philosophy founded upon the sciences,_ or of an _inductive metaphysic._ This is simply and solely the reduction of philosophy to the sciences, because a scientific philosophy, an inductive metaphysic, is not speculation, but classification, or as those who advocate it ingenuously declare, a systematization of the results obtained by the sciences. Here too are kindled the most comical quarrels between scientists and philosophers. For when it is only a question of classifying and systematizing those results, the scientist rightly feels that he can dispense with the labours of the philosopher, indeed, he feels that he alone, who has obtained the