In his Philosophy of Nature Schelling thus traces the objective world in its ascent from the crudest objective stage to the highest subjective; that is, from matter to moral freedom (so far as the latter exists). But, not content with this, he now reverses the process. He starts from the highest point reached by natural philos- ophy— to wit, self-conscious man — and reconstructs the whole system of philosophy from a subjective stand- point. In this — his Transcendental Idealism — he traces, accordinglj', the objective as rising from the subjective. He divides his subject-matter here into the theoretical, the practical, and (that which unites the two) the ar- tistic. In the theoretical part Schelling considers the various stadia of knowledge in their relation to the va- rious stadia of matter. Matter is extinct mind. The acts and phases' of self-consciousness are rediscoverable in the forces of nature and in the stages of their devel- opment. All the forces of the world are ultimately re- ducible to powers of ideal representation. Organiza- tion is necessary ; for intelligence must view itself in its productive, successive transition from cause to effect. This it cannot do without making that succession per- manent or representing it as at rest; and succession represented as at rest is organization. Intelligence is a never-ending effort at self-organization. Among the successive stages of organization there must be one which the subject is forced to regard as identical with
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himself. It is only tlirongh the fact that there are other intelligences tiian myself that the world is made objective to me. It is only throngh commerce with other individuals that I can come to the consciousness of my freedom. The intercommunication of rational individuals througli the medium of the objective world is the condition of freedom. But whether all free be- ings shall, or shall not, confine their action within such limits as leave free play to the freedom of each other is not left to chance, but is safeguarded by the higher law of justice. Justice rules in the interests of freedom with all the inviolability of a law of nature. All at- tempts to supplant the reign of absolute justice by an arbitrary, artificial statute code have ever proved futile and abortive. The guarantee of a good constitution in each state must lie, in the last resort, in the subordina- tion of all states to the common law of absolute right- eousness. The gradual approach towards a realization of righteousness is the substance of history. History, as a whole, is a progressive realization and manifesta- tion of the Absolute. It is only through history as a whole that the full proof of God's existence can become manifest. All single intelligences may be regarded as integrant parts of tiod or the moral order of the world. This divine order will fully exist as soon as individual intelligences establish it. Towards this consummation history is constantly advancing in consequence of a pre- established harmony between the objective necessary and the subjective free. This harmony is conceivable only on the supposition of the existence of a higher element, superior to both, as being the ground of the identity of the absolutely subjective and the absolutely objective, the conscious and the unconscious, whose original separation took place simply in order to the phenomenal manifestation of free action. If the phe- nomenal manifestation of freedom is necessarily un- ending, then history itself is a never-completed revela- tion of the Absolute, which disrupts itself, in view of this manifestation, into the conscious and the uncon- scious; but which is, in the inaccessible light in which it dwells, the eternal identity of both and the eternal ground of their harmony. To this higher element of identity no predicates can be givev. Hence it cannot be an object of knowledge, but only of jyractical postula- tion — that is, of faith or relifiion. If we turn our atten- tion exclusively to the orderliness of the objective world, we fall into a system of fatalism. If, on the contrary, we regard only the subjective, we land in irreligion or anarchy. But if we rise to the thought of that higher identity of both we attain to a system of pro ri- (lence— that is, of religion in the true sense of the word. It is true, Schelling leaves here untouched the very per- tinent question how this higher Absolute to which no predicates can be assigned can be described as pi-ori- (lenf. How he would have met the question we leave undecided.
The transcendental idealism of Schelling had grown under his hands into a complete system of philosophy. It was therefore not only co-ordinate with his philosophy of nature, but also supor-ordinate. But with this two- fold presentation of his system from tlie two poles of the finite (Nature and the Ego) Sclielling was not sat- isfied. He now felt that what he had found as the goal of his highest previous effort— to wit, the principle of absolute iiientity— should be laid as the beginning at the foundation. This brings us to the third stage of his philosophizing.
(3.) The epoch of his System of Identity. In this system everything is derived from tlie absolute reason, taken in the sense of the absolute identity of subject and object. The highest law of this principle is its identity with itself (A — A). It is absolutely infinite and o:ie. Whatever is, is this absolute itself. Single finite things exist only in reflection. As this absolute identity is everything, it is at the same time the total- ity of everything. It is not the source or the cause of everything, but it is jVseJ/" everything. In his concep-