esentations cannot be its
parts or qualities. Consequently, the unity produced by this _x_
can only be the formal unity of the combination of the manifold in
consciousness.[47]] "Then and then only do we say that we know the
object," [i. e. we know that the manifold relates to an object[48]]
"if we have produced synthetical unity in the manifold of perception.
But this unity would be impossible, if the perception could not be
produced by means of such a function of synthesis according to a rule
as renders the reproduction of the manifold a priori necessary, and a
conception in which the manifold unifies itself possible. Thus we
think a triangle as an object, in that we are conscious of the
combination of three straight lines in accordance with a rule by which
such a perception can at any time be presented. This _unity of the
rule_ determines all the manifold and limits it to conditions which
make the unity of apperception possible, and the conception of this
unity is the representation of the object=_x_, which I think through
the aforesaid predicates of a triangle." [I. e., apparently, 'to
conceive this unity of the rule is to represent to myself the object
_x_, i. e. the thing in itself,[49] of which I come to think by means
of the rule of combination.']

[46] Cf. p. 183, note 2.

[47] 'The formal unity' means not the unity peculiar to any
particular synthesis, but the character shared by all
syntheses of being a systematic whole.

[48] The final sense is the same whether 'object' be here
understood to refer to the thing in itself or to a
phenomenon.

[49] A comparison of this passage (A. 104-5, Mah. 198-9) with
A. 108-9, Mah. 201-2 (which seems to reproduce A. 104-5, Mah.
198-9), B. 522-3, M. 309 and A. 250, Mah. 224, seems to
render it absolutely necessary to understand by _x_, and by
the transcendental object, the thing in itself. Cf. also B.
236, M. 143 ('so soon as I raise my conception of an object
to the transcendental meaning thereof, the house is not a
thing in itself but only a phenomenon, i. e. a representation
of which the transcendental object is unknown'), A. 372, Mah.
247 and A. 379, Mah. 253.

In this passage several points claim attention. In the _first_ place,
it seems impossible to avoid the conclusion that in the second
sentence the argument is exactly reversed. Up to this point, it is
the thing in itself which produces unit