I shall not dwell upon the examination of these opinions[243]; but I may remark, that both in the recognition of conceptions as an original and essential element of the mind, and in giving a prominent place to the active function of the mind, in the origin of our knowledge, this view approaches to that which I have presented in preceding works; although undoubtedly with considerable differences. 8. The classification of the sciences which M. Ampère proposes, is founded upon a consideration of the sciences themselves; and is, the author conceives, in accordance with the conditions of natural classifications, as exhibited in Botany and other sciences. It is of a more symmetrical kind, and exhibits more steps of subordination, than that to which I have been led; it includes also practical Art as well as theoretical Science; and it is extended to moral and political as well as physical Sciences. It will not be necessary for me here to examine it in detail: but I may remark, that it is throughout a _dichotomous_ division, each higher member being subdivided into two lower ones, and so on. In this way, M. Ampère obtains sciences of the First Order, each of which is divided into two sciences of the Second, and four of the Third Order. Thus Mechanics is divided into _Cinematics_, _Statics_, _Dynamics_, and _Molecular Mechanics_; Physics is divided into _Experimental Physics_, _Chemistry_, _Stereometry_, and _Atomology_; Geology is divided into _Physical Geography_, _Mineralogy_, _Geonomy_, and _Theory of the Earth_. Without here criticizing these divisions or their principle, I may observe that _Cinematics_, the doctrine of motion without reference to the force which produces it, is a portion of knowledge which our investigation has led us also to see the necessity of erecting into a separate science; and which we have termed _Pure Mechanism_. Of the divisions of Geology, _Physical Geography_, especially as explained by M. Ampère, is certainly a part of the subject, both important and tolerably distinct from the rest. _Geonomy_ contains what we have termed in the History, _Descriptive Geology_;--the exhibition of the facts separate from the inquiry into their causes; while our _Physical Geology_ agrees with M. Ampère's _Theory of the Earth_. _Mineralogy_ appears to be placed by him in a different place from that which it occupies in our scheme: but in fact, he uses the term for a different science; he applies it to the classification not of _simple minerals_, but of _rocks_, which is a science auxiliary to geology, and which has sometimes been called _Petralogy_. What we have termed _Mineralogy_, M. Ampère unites with _Chemistry_. "It belongs," he says[244], "to Chemistry, and not to Mineralogy, to inquire how many atoms of silicium and of oxygen compose silica; to tell us that its primitive form is a rhombohedron of certain angles, that it is called _quartz_, &c.; leaving, on one hand,