(4.) With this work on Philosophy and Relifjion Schel- ling begins his transition to a more positive Christianity. All of his works subsequent to his System of Identity bear a more or less mystical coloring and become less and less rigidly systematic in form; at first the mys- ticism resembles that of the Eleusinian mysteries and of Neo-Platonism ; subsequently it approaches Chris- tianity on the footsteps of Biihrae. But this appropri- ation of mystical views was entirely independent on the part of Schelling; he seems to have been forced into them by a growing feeling of incomplete satisfaction with his previous views. And it is to be regretted that he did not openly concede the erroneousness of his earlier system or systems, but constantly represented his later system as simply complementive of his previous ones.
But his change of view is very radical. It came to definite expression for the first time in 1809, in his dis- cussion of the nature of human freedom. Here is to be found in embryo the very essence of his final system. Schelling gives up monism. Monism cannot solve the riddle of good and evil, and gives no play to creatural freedom. Idealism must be complemented bj' realism. Idealism is the soul of philosophy ; realism is its vital body; it is only from the union of the two that a vital whole can result. A few of Schelling's positions here are these: As nothing exists before or outside of God, so he has the ground of his existence within himself. This ground of his existence is not God per se, but it is a nature in God ; this nature is inseparable from (iod, but yet it is distinguishable ; it is not actually, but only logically, antecedent to God. It is only from this nat- ure in God that the diversity and multiplicity of finite things is explicable. In order that these things be other than God, it must be that they have the ground of their existence in something which is not God ; that is, in that in God which is not (Jod himself. The fur- ther development of these thoughts brings us to
(5.) Schelling's Later System. The thoughts here met with are unquestionably among the most brilliant and suggestive that are anywhere to be found in the field of the philosophy of religion. At the threshold of this system we meet with an examination of the impli- cations of creatural freedom. Among the fruitful con- clusions here reached is this, that purely rational, logical thought is incapable of leading us to a knowledge of realit}-. This conclusion leads to a distribution of phi- losophy into nef/ative and positive. By this distinc- tion, Schelling comes into sharp antithesis to Hegel, who endeavored to comprehend the real by the processes of mere abstract thought. In the view of Schelling,
this is impossible. Pure thought, pure reason, cannot a priori comprehend the existence of the objecti\e world of reality. What a thing is and that it is (quid sit et quod sit) are clearly to be distinguished. The what, the essence of a thing, may be expressed in thought, in ideas. But the knowledge that it exists is given by something outside of thought — to wit, its ex- istence itself. This knowledge comes to us from expe- I'ience, and not from reason. Existence cannot, there- fore, be dernonstrated ; it can only be experienced. It is only through this knowledge from experience that thought reaches to true knowledge. A negative or ideal philosophy has to do only with the possible. It is only a positive philosophy that can rise to contact with the real and with that which springs from the real — to vi\t, freedom and /i'ee action. But as the whole of the results of freedom is not yet complete, a positive phi- losophy cannot be presented in as rounded a systematic form as is possible with the negative. The highest at- tainment of negative philosophy is to show how the highest principle is in idea. The connecting link w hich leads over from the negative to the positive form of philosophy is the conviction, forced upon us by expe- rience, that God must be more than mere idea — that is, that he is real. As negative philosophy is the a-j)ri- orism of the empirical, so positive philosophy is the em- piricism of the a-prioristic — that is, it is philosophical empiricism.
Positive philosophy can assume a starting-point al- most anywhere — thus: "I will that which is higher than substance, to wit, the Lord of all being." From this initial assumption it then proceeds deductively, and the experience which results reacts as verification of the assumed starting-point. The world is here the posterius ; the unconditioned /ira/s is God. And the whole drama of human history is an accumulative proof that this posterius \s from this prius. It is only in the sphere of positive philosophy that we reach the field of religion — that is, of a real (not merely ideal) relation of man to God. The transition from a negative to a posi- tive philosophy is like that from the law to the Gospel. For a purely rational science, the idea of an objective religion does not exist. Keligion originates practically through a longing and desire of the spirit, which cannot be satisfied with the merely ideal God of speculation. This longing is not an expression of the practical reason, as Kant would have it, but rather of the individual ^^fr- sonalily. It is not the generic, but the specific, that leads to God; for it is not the generic element of man (tlie reason), but the specific (the personality), that calls for happiness. The individual, as personality, calls for a person who is outside of and above the world — a Heart — with which it may commune. The object and ct>n- tent of positive philosophy are furnished by revelation. But revelation is not philosophy, even as a ledge of rocks is not geology; it becomes philosophj' only when thought digests and constructs it. Revelation is as es- sential to religious knowledge as the crust of the earth is to geological knowledge , hence the absolute defect of rationalism ; reason is not competent to judge as to what revelation should be, but only to construct the revelation which is.