"There is always a transcendental condition at the basis of any necessity. Hence we must be able to find a transcendental ground of the unity of consciousness in the synthesis of the manifold of all our perceptions, and therefore also of the conceptions of objects in general, consequently also of all objects of experience, a ground without which it would be impossible to think any object for our perceptions; for this object is no more than that something, the conception of which expresses such a necessity of synthesis." "Now this original and transcendental condition is no other than _transcendental apperception_. The consciousness of self according to the determinations of our state in internal sense-perception is merely empirical, always changeable; there can be no fixed or permanent self in this stream of internal phenomena, and this consciousness is usually called _internal sense_ or _empirical apperception_. That which is _necessarily_ to be represented as numerically identical cannot be thought as such by means of empirical data. The condition which is to make such a transcendental presupposition valid must be one which precedes all experience, and makes experience itself possible." "Now no cognitions[52] can occur in us, no combination and unity of them with one another, without that unity of consciousness which precedes all data of perception, and by relation to which alone all representation of objects is possible. This pure original unchangeable consciousness I shall call _transcendental apperception_. That it deserves this name is clear from the fact that even the purest objective unity, viz. that of _a priori_ conceptions (space and time) is only possible by relation of perceptions to it. The numerical unity of this apperception therefore forms the _a priori_ foundation of all conceptions, just as the multiplicity of space and time is the foundation of the perceptions of the sensibility."[53] [52] _Erkenntnisse._ [53] A. 106-7, Mah. 200-1.