Nature, according to Schelling, has its own metaphysical reality, independent of the rising consciousness of the empirical ego. Making use of new concepts in the field of electricity and transferring them to philosophy, Schelling maintains that the Spirit and nature must be conceived as two poles, positive and negative, of the reality of the Absolute, completely identical and inseparable from one another. The production of nature is due to the fact that the pole of nature prevails over the pole of the spirit through the unconscious action of the Absolute. This prevalence, however, can never reach the point of nullifying the presence of the Universal Spirit, for both the Spirit and nature are insuppressible. Hence nature is internally spiritualized, endowed with life, organic functions and finality.
Mechanical causality is a secondary means for the actuation of finality.
The finalistic and organic tendency of nature becomes visible in the living being, in which the various parts act for the good of the whole. The consciousness of the Universal Spirit first appears in sensation. The odyssey of the Spirit has ended, and an inverse process has begun. The Spirit, by reflection, reconquers that which it had produced in the shadows of the unconscious. This process is the work of philosophy, which goes back and considers the stages or moments through which the Absolute became nature and consciousness.