Where romanticism is concerned, systematizations will always come up against limits. Not only is it possible to mistake transitions from romantic natural science to empirical natural science, but there is varying proximity to or remoteness from speculative natural philosophy. Often individual passages in romanticism are shaped by an immanent connection between phenomenon and concept which is a hallmark of speculative natural philosophy, and natural philosophy is in no way free from statements in which the terms are related more externally to the phenomena and a(n onto)logical basis for the relationship between notion and phenomenon does not seem to have been achieved.
For all their agreement in rejecting an empirical natural science which made itself absolute, the romantic natural philosophers could not conceal the differences in their conception. In reflections on their own standpoint a relationship to Schelling's natural philosophy naturally plays an
important role. Görres stresses his independence of Schelling, but he took time to achieve it: "Schelling's powerful nature stimulated me as Plato stimulated him; each is his own product and that of his whole past. I spoke his
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language because at that time it was not yet spoken very much, but my eccentric nature drove me out of a form: I had to create my own language, for the school could not tolerate me in its closed circles." 92 Görres complains that Oken's early attempt at a survey of the outline of the system of
natural philosophy in 1804 is too dependent "on the tight fetters of Schelling's construction," 93
but says that in principle this work has to be recognized as an important contribution to the development of science. In a review, von Eschenmayer accuses Oken of wanting to see God in nature; it is even to be assumed "that with his doctrine of God he is trying to pull our legs somewhat." 94
Troxler also distances himself from Schelling in seeking to recognize the foundation of all reality and ideality in "life." Life, he argues, to some extent transcends nature and spirit and "reveals" itself only relatively in these two spheres; in principle it can be recognized "only in its image and counterpart." 95 Troxler regards his "biosophy" as the consummation of the history of philosophy,
as the overcoming of the one-sidedness of the critical standpoint of Kant and the subjective and objective idealistic positions of Fichte and Schelling. The principle of biosophy means
"recognizing the Absolute in itself as something both beyond the Absolute of reason and beyond the Absolute of Nature." 96 For Ritter, Schelling is a one-sided, though necessary, element in the
history of natural philosophy; Schelling conceived his natural principles too much in terms of electricity: "he is really a philosophical electrician or an electrical philosopher. We still lack the
magnetic side, a magnetic philosopher. The one who combines the two will be a chemical philosopher, and the supreme judge." 97For Ritter, the attempt to under stand the metaphysics of
nature solely through human reason, neglecting faith and intimation, is responsible for the basically atheistical character of Schelling's natural philosophy. Steffens accuses Oken and other romantic natural scientists "of being concerned almost exclusively with manifest life and
discussing general physics in an extremely sparse way." 98 Without the acceptance and
philosophical penetration of the inorganic realms of nature also, however, it is impossible to develop a convincing philosophical basis for the natural sciences. Steffens is aware that the romantic contemplation of nature is constantly in danger of turning into "mere formalism"; he is convinced that it was because Schelling partially succumbed to this danger among the romantics that he was moved "to give up further work in this direction." 99 But formalism is not essential
for romantic natural science; it is partly dependent on the almost vain effort to offer another perspective on nature alongside the overwhelming positivist natural science, and it must also be judged a first step toward a more successful future association of form and content or method and object. With other natural scientists
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Oken wants to avoid succumbing to the danger of formalism and later wants to be free of initial formal confusions. If natural scientists maintained this charge they would not be doing justice to the essence and aims of natural philosophy or the metaphysical contemplation of nature. They would thus be depriving themselves of the possibility of a serious examination: "It is to be regretted that scholars who rightly used to recognize under the title of natural philosophy nothing but formalities and often fraud, still even now associate the old nonsense with this word and are therefore deaf to self-examination." 100 In the middle of the nineteenth century Schubert similarly
confronted inadequate and polemic attacks by the natural scientists:
They are accustomed in their fantasies to set up a man of straw or some ridiculously dressed scarecrow; to this contraption they give the name of natural philosophy and attribute to it both the wretchness of the straw and the gaudy rags and bits of glass which in fact really came out of their own heads. 101
Romantic natural science is not a uniform movement. It is one of the prejudices of positivism to think that multiplicity and deviations are possible only in the arts and humanities. Idealistic, theosophical, and aesthetic trends can be distinguished, and even trends that incline more toward natural philosophy and theological mysticism. 102 An even more sophisticated division could be
derived from a series of dimensions and aspects: (1) the relationship between empiricism and philosophy or the relationship between fact and metaphysics; (2) the application of formal principles like identity, difference, polarity, analogy, potency, and metamorphosis or even mathematical categories; (3) orientation on particular realms of nature; (4) the relationship between natural science and society and history; (5) the relationship between natural science and art; and (6) the relationship between natural science and religion.
In this perspective meaningful lines of demarcation and interconnections could be marked out both theoretically and historically. Summary decisions and classifications are hardly likely to be successful. The realms of nature and the individual scientific disciplines each need specific analysis and an assessment of their relationship to philosophy, religion, and art, to society and history. Whether it is possible to arrive from this at a level from which these differences can be derived, and on the basis of which the spectrum of romantic natural science can be systematized, is still an open question.
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