“...that no differences among our sensations are determined by any differences in the _non-ego_ (for to say that they are so determined is to say that the form under which the _non-ego_ exists produces an effect upon the _ego_); and as it similarly follows that the order of coexistence and sequence among these sensations is not determined by any order in the _non-ego_; we are compelled to conclude that all these differences and changes in the _ego_ are self-determined.” Kant’s argument in the _Dissertation_ is exactly of this nature. “Objects do not strike the senses by their form. In order, therefore, that the various impressions from the object acting on the sense may coalesce into some whole of representation, there is required an inner principle of the mind through which in accordance with stable and innate laws that manifold may take on some form.”[387] In the paragraph before us Kant may, at first sight, seem to offer an argument. He is really only restating his premiss. “That wherein alone sensations can be arranged (_sich ordnen_[388]) and placed in a certain form cannot itself again be sensation.” Now, of course, if the term sensation is to be limited to the sense qualities, _i.e._ to content or matter, conceived as existing apart from all formal relations, the formal elements cannot possibly be sensational. The legitimacy of that limitation is, however, the question at issue. It cannot be thus decided by an arbitrary verbal distinction. “Were the contention that the relations of sensations are not themselves sensed correct, the inference to the pure apriority of the form of our perception would be inevitable. For sensation is the sole form of interaction between consciousness and reality.... But that contention is false. The relations of sensations, their determined coexistence and sequence, impress consciousness, just as do the sensations. We feel this impression in the compulsion which the determinateness of the empirical manifolds lays upon the perceiving consciousness. The mere affection of consciousness by these relations does not, indeed, by itself suffice for their apprehension; but neither does it suffice for the apprehension of the sensation itself. Thus there is in these respects no difference between the matter and the form of appearance.”[389] In this way, then, by means of his definition of sensation, Kant surreptitiously introduces his fundamental assumption. That assumption reappears as the conclusion that since the form of appearance cannot be sensation, it does not arise through the action of the object, and consequently must be _a priori_. Though the paragraph seems to offer an argument in support of the apriority of space and time, it is found on examination merely to unfold a position adopted without the slightest attempt at proof.[390]