I read the following quote somewhere:
Inspired by the romantic spirit of a 'global spirit' and the understanding that all forces are the manifestation of a unified force; Schelling, Faraday & Oersted attempt to understand electricity & magnetism on a common basis: Nature philosophy actively influences science.
I take it that Schelling was going from Hegel, or was there some common inspiration? Hegel, in his Philosophy of Right wrote:
When it is said that matter is heavy, it might be meant that the predicate is an accident; but such is not the case, for in matter there is nothing that has not weight. In fact, matter is weight (S. 4 Zu.)
Thereby saying matter is force; that is everything physical is reducible to force - which is one notion of 'unification'; and interestingly different from Spinoza, for whom the physical is extension. It appears here, that Spinoza is inspired by the mathematical sciences - Euclid; and Hegel here, by Physics, at least here.
Did Schelling have a theory of force (I mean in a philosophical sense), and how did he justify it?