multiplicity of space and time is the
foundation of the perceptions of the sensibility."[53]

[52] _Erkenntnisse._

[53] A. 106-7, Mah. 200-1.

The argument is clearly meant to be 'transcendental' in character; in
other words, Kant continues to argue from the existence of knowledge
to the existence of its presuppositions. We should therefore expect
the passage to do two things: firstly, to show what it is which is
presupposed by the 'unity of consciousness in the synthesis of the
manifold'[54]; and secondly, to show that this presupposition deserves
the title 'transcendental apperception'. Unfortunately Kant introduces
'transcendental apperception' after the manner in which he introduced
the 'sensibility', the 'imagination' and the 'understanding', as if it
were a term with which every one is familiar, and which therefore
needs little explanation. To interpret the passage, it seems necessary
to take it in close connexion with the preceding account of the three
'syntheses' involved in knowledge, and to bear in mind that, as a
comparison of passages will show, the term 'apperception', which Kant
borrows from Leibniz, always has for Kant a reference to consciousness
of self or self-consciousness. If this be done, the meaning of the
passage seems to be as follows:

[54] We should have expected this to have been already
accomplished. For according to the account already
considered, it is we who by our imagination introduce
necessity into the synthesis of the manifold and by our
understanding become conscious of it. We shall therefore not
be surprised to find that 'transcendental apperception' is
really only ourselves as exercising imagination and
understanding in a new guise.

'To vindicate the existence of a self which is necessarily one and the
same throughout its representations, and which is capable of being
aware of its own identity throughout, it is useless to appeal to that
consciousness of ourselves which we have when we reflect upon our
successive states. For, although in being conscious of our states we
are conscious of ourselves we are not conscious of ourselves as
unchanging. The self as going through successive states is changing,
and even if in fact its states did not change, its identity would be
only contingent; it need not continue unchanged. Consequently, the
only course possible is to show that the self-consciousness in
question is presupposed in any experienc