The argument is clearly meant to be 'transcendental' in character; in other words, Kant continues to argue from the existence of knowledge to the existence of its presuppositions. We should therefore expect the passage to do two things: firstly, to show what it is which is presupposed by the 'unity of consciousness in the synthesis of the manifold'[54]; and secondly, to show that this presupposition deserves the title 'transcendental apperception'. Unfortunately Kant introduces 'transcendental apperception' after the manner in which he introduced the 'sensibility', the 'imagination' and the 'understanding', as if it were a term with which every one is familiar, and which therefore needs little explanation. To interpret the passage, it seems necessary to take it in close connexion with the preceding account of the three 'syntheses' involved in knowledge, and to bear in mind that, as a comparison of passages will show, the term 'apperception', which Kant borrows from Leibniz, always has for Kant a reference to consciousness of self or self-consciousness. If this be done, the meaning of the passage seems to be as follows: [54] We should have expected this to have been already accomplished. For according to the account already considered, it is we who by our imagination introduce necessity into the synthesis of the manifold and by our understanding become conscious of it. We shall therefore not be surprised to find that 'transcendental apperception' is really only ourselves as exercising imagination and understanding in a new guise.