“All our representations are referred by the understanding to some object; and since appearances are merely representations, the understanding refers them to a _something_ as the object of sensuous intuition. But this something, thus conceived (_in so fern_), is only the transcendental object; and by that is meant a something = x, of which we know, and with the present constitution of our understanding can know, nothing whatsoever, but which, as a correlate of the unity of apperception, can serve only for the unity of the manifold in sensuous intuition. By means of this unity the understanding combines the manifold into the concept of an object. This transcendental object cannot be separated from the sense data, for nothing then remains over through which it might be thought. Consequently it is not in itself an object of knowledge, but only the representation of appearances under the concept of an object in general which is determinable through the manifold of those appearances. Precisely for this reason also the categories do not represent a special object given to the understanding alone, but only serve to specify the transcendental object (the concept of something in general) through that which is given in sensibility, in order thereby to know appearances empirically under concepts of objects.”[785] “The object to which I relate appearance in general is the transcendental object, _i.e._ the completely indeterminate thought of _something_ in general. This cannot be entitled the _noumenon_ [_i.e._ the thing in itself more specifically determined as being the object of a purely intelligible intuition];[786] for I know nothing of what it is in itself, and have no concept of it save as the object of a sensuous intuition in general, and so as being one and the same for all appearances.”[787] Otherwise stated, Kant’s teaching is as follows. The thought of the thing in itself remains altogether indeterminate; it does not _specify_ its object, and therefore yields no knowledge of it; none the less it is a necessary ingredient in the concept of objectivity as such. The object as specified in terms of sense is _mere representation_; the object as genuinely objective can only be thought. The correlate of the unity of apperception is the thought of the thing in itself. This is what Kant is really asserting, though in a hesitating manner which would seem to indicate that he is himself already more or less conscious of its unsatisfactory and un-Critical character.