'To vindicate the existence of a self which is necessarily one and the same throughout its representations, and which is capable of being aware of its own identity throughout, it is useless to appeal to that consciousness of ourselves which we have when we reflect upon our successive states. For, although in being conscious of our states we are conscious of ourselves we are not conscious of ourselves as unchanging. The self as going through successive states is changing, and even if in fact its states did not change, its identity would be only contingent; it need not continue unchanged. Consequently, the only course possible is to show that the self-consciousness in question is presupposed in any experience or knowledge. Now it is so presupposed. For, as we have already shown, the relation of representations to an object presupposes one consciousness which combines and unifies them, and is at the same time conscious of the identity of its own action in unifying them. This consciousness is the ground of the unity of consciousness in the synthesis of the manifold. It may fairly be called transcendental, because even a conception which relates to space or time, and therefore is the most remote from sensation, presupposes one consciousness which combines and unifies the manifold of space and time through the conception, and is conscious of the identity of its own action in so doing. It may, therefore, be regarded as the presupposition of _all_ conceiving or bringing a manifold under a conception, and therefore of all knowledge. Consequently, since knowledge is possible, i. e. since the manifold of representations can be related to an object, there must be one self capable of being aware of its own identity throughout its representations.' At this point of Kant's argument, however, there seems to occur an inversion of the thought. Hitherto, Kant has been arguing from the possibility of knowledge to the possibility of the consciousness of our own identity. But in the next paragraph he appears to reverse this procedure and to argue from the possibility of self-consciousness to the possibility of knowledge.