The =manifold of appearance= (_das Mannichfaltige der Erscheinung_). The meaning to be assigned to this phrase must depend upon the settlement of the above question.[370] But in this passage it allows only of a subjectivist interpretation, whereby sensations _are_ appearance. The given sensations as such constitute a manifold; as objects in space they are already ordered. Kant’s more usual phrase is “the manifold of intuition.” His adoption of the term “manifold” (the _varia_ of the _Dissertation_) expresses his conviction that synthesis is indispensable for all knowledge, and also his correlative view that nothing absolutely simple can be apprehended in sense-experience. By the manifold Kant does not mean, however, as some of his commentators would seem to imply, the chaotic or disordered. The emphasis is on manifoldness or plurality, as calling for reduction to unity and system. The unity has to be _found_ in it, not introduced into it forcibly from the outside. The manifold has to be _interpreted_, even though the principles of interpretation may originate independently of it. Though, for instance, the manifold as given is not in space and time, the specific space and time relations assigned by us are determined for us by the inherent nature of the manifold itself.[371] The form of appearance is defined--if the definition given in the first edition be translated literally--as “that which causes (_dasjenige, welches macht dass_) the manifold of appearance to be intuited as ordered in certain relations.” This phrase is employed by Kant in other connections, and, as Vaihinger points out,[372] need not necessarily indicate activity. “Sensation is that in our knowledge which causes it to be called _a posteriori_ knowledge.”[373] In the second edition Kant altered the text from “_geordnet angeschaut wird_” to “_geordnet werden kann_.” The reason probably was that the first edition’s wording might seem to imply that the form is (as the _Dissertation_ taught) capable in and by itself of ordering the manifold. Throughout the second edition Kant makes more prominent the part which understanding plays in the apprehension of space.[374] This distinction between matter and form is central in Kant’s system.[375] As he himself says: “These are two conceptions which underlie all other reflection, so inseparably are they bound up with all employment of the understanding. The one [matter] signifies the determinable in general, the other [form] its determination.”[376]