The content of this phase of Schelling’s thought[1] was so unfruitful, and its influence so small, that brief hints concerning it must here suffice.  First of all, the doctrine of the divine potencies and of creation is repeated in altered form, and then there is given a philosophy of the history of religion as a reflection of the theogonic process in human consciousness.

[Footnote 1:  On Schelling’s negative and positive philosophy, published in the four volumes of the second division of the Works, cf.  Karl Groos, Die reine Vernunftwissenschaft, systematische Darstellung von Schellings negativer Philosophie, 1889; Konstantin Frantz, Schellings positive Philosophie, in three parts, 1879-80; Ed. von Hartmann, Gesammelte Studien und Aufsaetze, 1876, p. 650 seq.; Ad.  Planck, Schellings nachgelassene Werke, 1858; also the essay by Heyder, referred to above].

The potencies are now called the infinite ability to be (inactive will, subject), pure being (being without potentiality, object), and spirit, which is free from the one-sidednesses of mere potentiality and of mere being, and master of itself (subject-object); to these is added, further—­not as a fourth, but as that which has the three predicates and is wholly in each—­the absolute proper, as the cause and support of these attributes.  The original unity of the three forms is dissolved, as the first raises itself out of the condition of a mere potency and withdraws itself from pure being in order to exist for itself; the tension extends itself to the two others—­the second now comes out from its selflessness, subdues the first, and so leads the third back to unity.  In creation the three potencies stand related as the unlimited Can-be, the limiting Must-be, and the Ought-to-be, or operate as material, formal, and final causes, all held in undivided combination by the soul.  It was not until the end of creation that they became personalities.  Man, in whom the potencies come to rest, can divide their unity again; his fall calls forth a new tension, and thereby the world becomes a world outside of God.  History, the process o progressive reconciliation between the God-estranged world and God, passes through two periods—­heathenism, in which the second person works as a natural potency, and Christianity, in which it works with freedom.  In the discussion of these positive philosophy becomes a philosophy of mythology and revelation.  The irresistible force of mythological ideas is explained by the fact that the gods are not creations of the fancy, but real powers, namely, these potencies, which form the substance of human conciousness.