nception not of an 'object in general',
but of 'an object of the particular kind which constitutes
the individual whole produced by the combination a whole of
the particular kind that it is of', and that, in accordance
with this, the self-consciousness involved is not the mere
consciousness that our combining activity is identical
throughout, but the consciousness that it is an identical
activity of a particular kind, e. g. that of counting five
units. Cf. pp. 184 fin.-186, 190-2, and 206-7.

Hitherto there has been no mention of an _object_ of knowledge, and
since knowledge is essentially knowledge of an object, Kant's next
task is to give such an account of an object of knowledge as will show
that the processes already described are precisely those which give
our representations, i. e. the manifold of sense, relation to an
object, and consequently yield knowledge.

He begins by raising the question, 'What do we mean by the phrase 'an
object of representations'?'[37] He points out that a phenomenon, since
it is a mere sensuous representation, and not a thing in itself
existing independently of the faculty of representations, is just not
an object. To the question, therefore, 'What is meant by an object
corresponding to knowledge and therefore distinct from it?' we are
bound to answer from the point of view of the distinction between
phenomena and things in themselves, that the object is something in
general = _x_, i. e. the thing in itself of which we know only
_that_ it is and not _what_ it is. There is, however, another point
of view from which we can say something more about an object of
representations and the correspondence of our representations to it,
viz. that from which we consider what is involved in the thought of
the relation of knowledge or of a representation to its object. "We
find that our thought of the relation of all knowledge to its object
carries with it something of necessity, since its object is regarded
as that which prevents our cognitions[38] being determined at random
or capriciously, and causes them to be determined _a priori_ in a
certain way, because in that they are to relate to an object, they
must necessarily also, in relation to it, agree with one another, that
is to say, they must have that unity which constitutes the conception
of an object."[39]

[37] _Vorstellung_ in the present passage is perhaps better
rendered 'idea', but representatio