develops into irritability or excitability; the higher analogue to the chemical process as the most individual and highest stage is sensibility or the capacity of feeling. (Such at least is Schelling’s doctrine after Steffens had convinced him of the higher dignity of that which is individual, whereas at first he had made sensibility parallel with magnetism, and reproduction with chemism, because the former two appear most seldom, and the latter most frequently.  Electricity and irritability always maintained their intermediate position.) With the awakening of feeling nature has attained its goal—­intelligence.  As inorganic substances are distinguished only by relative degrees of repulsion and attraction, so the differentiation of organisms is conditioned by the relation of the three vital functions:  in the lower forms reproduction predominates, then irritability gradually increases, while in the highest forms both of these are subordinated to sensibility.  All species, however, are connected by a common life, all the stages are but arrests of the same fundamental force.  This accentuation of the unity of nature, which establishes a certain kinship between Schelling’s philosophy of nature and Darwinism, was a great idea, which deserves the thanks of posterity in spite of such defects as its often sportive, often heedlessly bold reasoning in details.

The parallelism of the potencies of nature, as we have developed it by leaving out of account the numerous differences between the various expositions of the Naturphilosophie, may be shown by a table: 

I. UNIVERSAL NATURE.  II.  INORGANIC NATURE III.  ORGANIC NATURE. 
   (ORGANIZING)
    3.  Copula 3.  Organization
     or Life. |
     ___^___ Chemical \ G | Sensi- Man.
    / \ |Process (3d| a | |bility. __^__
    2.  Light 2._Dynamical_|Dimen- | l | | / \
      (Soul). Process. < sion) | v | |Irritabi- Male

b.  At-   \           (Determi-  |Electri-   | a      |_|lity.    (=Light)
traction.|           nate       |city (2d Di->n        |Animal.
>1.  Gra-   matter.)   | mension.) | i        |
|    vity 1.  Indeter-  |Magnetism  | s        |Repro-    Female
a.  Re-   |   (Body)  minate     |(1st Di-   | m        |duction (-Gravity)
pulsion  /          matter.   \ mension.) /          \ Plant.

%1b.  Transcendental Philosophy.%

The philosophy of nature explained the products of nature teleologically, deduced them from the concept or the mission of nature, by ignoring the mechanical origin of physical phenomena and inquiring into the significance of each stage in nature in view of this ideal meaning of the whole.  It asks what is the outcome of the chemical process for the whole of nature, what is given by electricity, by magnetism, etc.—­what