The volume contains the ›Einleitung zu seinem Entwurf eines Systems der Naturphilosophie‹ (Introduction to the Outline of a System of the Philosophy of Nature), in which Schelling develops the philosophy of nature as a »necessary science«, and the essays written by Schelling in the first volume of his ›Journal of Speculative Physics‹ (1800). One of these is the famous treatise on the ›Allgemeine Deduction des dynamischen Processes‹ (General Deduction of the Dynamic Process), in which Schelling undertakes to describe a systematic theory of matter. All the texts, (including those which are not in the ›Sämmtliche Werke‹), have been made accessible with detailed editorial reports (for example on the origins of the ›Journal of Speculative Physics‹ and on Schellings conflict with the ›Allgemeinen Literatur-Zeitung‹), annotations, indexes and a bibliography.