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Full Idea
Cantor calls mathematics an empirical science in so far as it begins with consideration of things in the external world; on his view, number originates only by abstraction from objects.
Gist of Idea
Cantor says that maths originates only by abstraction from objects
Source
report of George Cantor (works [1880]) by Gottlob Frege - Grundlagen der Arithmetik (Foundations) §21
Book Ref
Frege,Gottlob: 'The Foundations of Arithmetic (Austin)', ed/tr. Austin,J.L. [Blackwell 1980], p.27
A Reaction
Frege utterly opposed this view, and he seems to have won the day, but I am rather thrilled to find the great Cantor endorsing my own intuitions on the subject. The difficulty is to explain 'abstraction'.