Page:History of Modern Philosophy (Falckenberg).djvu/470

 448 SCHELLING. insp.-red by Jacob Bohme ; the latter, by the philosophy of mythology and revelation, which goes back to Aristotle and the Gnostics. In the first period the absolute for Schelling is creative nature ; in the second, the identity of opposites ; in the third it is an antemundane process which advances from the not-yct-present of the contraries to their overcoming. In neither of these advances is it Schelling's intention to break with his previous teachings, but in each case only to add a supplement. That which has hitherto been the whole is retained as a part. The philosophy of nature takes its place beside the completed Fichtean transcendental philosophy, with equal rights, though with a reversed procedure ; then the theory of identity assumes a place above both ; finally, a positive (existential) philosophy is added to the previous negative (rational) philosophy. la. Philosophy of Nature. Schelling agrees with Fichte that philosophy is transcen- dental science, the doctrine of thefconditions_ji£_cons.cious- ness, and has to answer the question, What rriust take place in order that knowledge may arise ? They agree, further, that these conditions of knowledge are necessary ao ^, ou tgoings of^ aii_actiye._origijial gr9und which is not yet conscious self, but seeks to become such, and that the material world is the product of these actions. Nature v/^exists in order that the_eg£L.niayLjdeyelop. But while Fichte correctly understood the purpose of nature, to he]p intelligence into being, he failed to recognize the(dig;) nity of nature, for he deprived it of all self-dependence, all life of its own, all generative power, and treated it merely as a dead tool, as a passive, merely posited non-ego. Nature is not a board which the original ego nails up before itself in order, striking against it, to be driven back upon itself, to be compelled to reflection, and thereby to become theoretical ego ; in order, further, working over the non-ego, and transforming it, to exercise its prac- tical activity : but it is a ladder on which spirit rises to itself. Spirit develops out^pLnatiirej nature itself has a J