Two points in this argument are, even on the face of it, paradoxical. Firstly, the term _a priori_, as applied not to geometrical judgements but to the perception of space, is given a temporal sense; it means not something whose validity is independent of experience and which is the manifestation of the nature of the mind, but something which takes place before experience. Secondly, the conclusion is not that the perception of space _is the manifestation of_ the mind's perceiving nature, but that it _is_ the mind's perceiving nature. For the conclusion is that space[33] is the formal nature of the subject to be affected by objects, and therefore the form of the external sense in general. Plainly, then, Kant here confuses an actual perception and a form or way of perceiving. These points, however, are more explicit in the corresponding passage in the _Prolegomena_.[34] [33] Kant draws no distinction between space and the perception of space, or, rather, habitually speaks of space as a perception. No doubt he considers that his view that space is only a characteristic of phenomena justifies the identification of space and the perception of it. Occasionally, however, he distinguishes them. Thus he sometimes speaks of the representation of space (e. g. B. 38-40, M. 23-4); in _Prol._, § 11, he speaks of a pure perception of space and time; and in B. 40, M. 25, he says that our representation of space must be perception. But this language is due to the pressure of the facts, and not to his general theory; cf. pp. 135-6. [34] §§ 6-11.