[85] The concept I have of the science that I name ‘philosophy of nature’ has been quite clearly explained in many passages in the second issue of the first volume [of this journal], and the relation I believe I can establish between it and transcendental philosophy is ascertainable from those same texts by anyone who is fairly accurately informed about the state of contemporary philosophy.

Already in the Introductionto my Outline of the System of Philosophy of Nature, there is the following passage on p. 15:

And the following are given as such presuppositions:

• 1. That many people misled by the term ‘philosophy of nature’ expect transcendental deductions of natural phenomena, the same as exist in various fragments [of the transcendental system] elsewhere; [86] for me, however, philosophy of nature is a self-sufficient whole and is a science fully differentiated from transcendental philosophy.

• 2. That many will find in my Outlinetheir own concept of dynamic physics – namely, where I cite the [theory] that all specific changes and differences in matter are merely changes or differences of the degree of density – but this is not my opinion.

It is precisely on these points that Eschenmayer disagrees with me in the above critique of my Outline of Philosophy of Nature. As important to me as the judgement of this sharp-witted philosopher on my work must be, for, after Kant, he was the first to secure the grounds for a dynamic physics, I do so wish that he had not so happily left unread that Introduction.