C. S. Peirce on positivism and metaphysics

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"Positivists are in the habit of considering positivism and metaphysics as opposed species of philosophy. Now to maintain that the conclusions of metaphysics are as yet very certain would be enthusiastic enough in view of the differences of opinion among metaphysicians. These differences have been growing less and less from one century to another, owing to a gradual clearing up of conceptions. But the whole effective result of metaphysical research hitherto may be described in saying that certain indistinct conceptions have been made distinct. Every great branch of science has once been in the state in which metaphysics is now, that is when its fundamental conceptions were vague and consequently its doctrines utterly unsettled; and there is no reason whatever to despair of metaphysics eventually becoming a real science like the rest; but at present that is not the case."


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