Abstract

The importance of German Naturphilosophie for the development of a unified view of nature is often emphasized. The search for ultimate unity of natural phenomena, however, was already too common among physicists of the waning 18th century to ascribe its popularity to the influence of philosophers. To avoid the plethora of imponderable fluids, many „atomists”︁ reduced electric, magnetic, thermal, and chemical phenomena to a dualism of contrary principles, thereby prefiguring the „dynamic”︁ ideas of romantic Naturphilosophen.In particular we show how Schelling's early account of his Naturphilosophie was shaped by J. A. Deluc's atomistic theory of gases and vapours.