Kant continues thus: "But it is clear that, since we have to do only with the manifold of our representations, and the _x_, which corresponds to them (the object), since it is to be something distinct from all our representations, is for us nothing, the unity which the object necessitates can be nothing else than the formal unity of consciousness in the synthesis of the manifold of representations." [I. e. since the object which produces systematic unity in our representations is after all only the unknown thing in itself, viz. _x_,[46] any of the parts or qualities of which it is impossible to know, that to which it gives unity can be only our representations and not its own parts or qualities. For, since we do not know any of its parts or qualities, these representations 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.