In his Critique of Teleological Judgment, Kant addresses an apparent ‘contradiction’ concerning organic formations: organisms are governed by universal mechanical laws yet are end-directed, that is, they exhibit purposiveness. Mechanical, or ‘real’, causality pertains to nature, or the world. ‘Ideal’ causality pertains to the mind. Kant resolves the antinomy with the idea of the ‘supersensible, on which we must base nature as phenomenon’, and in which both types of causalities originate. Schelling, I contend, follows closely Kant’s formulation of the antinomy. His aim, however, is to show that we can have an empirical cognition of these objects, as well to offer what Kant calls a scientific ‘explanation’ and not a mere ‘elucidation’ of their constitution and function. Showing this will entail an ontological extension of Kant’s own solution to the antinomial conflict, namely, a unity of mechanical and teleological causes by the principle of life, the ‘world-soul’, which has a constitutive and not a regulative status and which permeates both inorganic and organic nature. This unity is possible only insofar as both inorganic and organic nature exhibit the prior unity of mind and world in the Absolute.