tainly had never left him. He suggests the possibility of a monistic theory, which, according to his conviction, was incapable of scientific elaboration.
C. Opponents and First Disciples
If Kant himself felt that the stupendous critical task made it necessary to appeal to a fundamental unity behind the variety of distinctions, such demand must necessarily become even more insistent to independent thinkers who assumed a critical attitude to his own investigations. Independent disciples, if they had seriously studied the doctrines of the master, must likewise have felt the need of a greater unity and harmony. The difference between the opponents and the disciples consists in the fact that the former assumed a purely polemical attitude, whilst the latter endeavored to forge ahead to new viewpoints on the basis of the critical philosophy; the former oppose the necessary totality of life and faith to philosophical analysis, whilst the latter seek to realize a new idea of totality by means of a thorough analysis.
1. Foremost among the opponents, stands John George Hamann (1730-1788), "The Wise Man of the North," who was one of Kant's personal friends. After a restless youth he settled in Königsberg in the office of Superintendent of Customs. His external circumstances were poor and he experienced profound mental struggles. He was a foe to every kind of analysis because of a morbid demand in his own nature for a complete, vital and undivided spiritual reality. He finds the ground of religion in our total being and it is far more comprehensive than the sphere of knowledge. The life of pure thought is the most abstract form of existence. Hamann refers to Hume as not having been refuted by Kant (the Prussian Hume).
