How did Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling connect dark impulses to evil?

In his work Of Human Freedom (1809), Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling argued that true human freedom requires the capacity for both good and evil. He posited that every living being is governed by two fundamental principles: a "dark primal foundation" of carnal desire and impulse, and a "clearheaded sensibleness" that acts as a formative, intellectual power.1

Schelling explained that evil arises when humanity reverses this natural order by elevating the dark stratum of impulse—which was intended only to serve as a source of power for the intellect—above the intellect itself. By subordinating the intellect to these dark impulses, humans commit the act described in the Bible as the Fall from grace. This perversion of the proper hierarchy is the origin of evil in the world, a state that is ultimately revoked through the divine intervention of Christ, who restores the original order.1