Underlying the mistake is the identification of perception with judgement. Our apprehension of what things _are_ is essentially a matter of thought or judgement, and not of perception. We do not _perceive_[36] but _think_ a thing as it is. It is true that we can follow Kant's language so far as to say that our judgement that the portion of the great circle joining two points on the surface of a sphere is the shortest way between them _via_ the surface belongs essentially to the thinking faculty of every intelligent being, and also that it is valid for all intelligences, in the sense that they must all hold it to be true; and we can contrast this judgement with a perception of the portion of the great circle as something which, though it cannot be said to be invalid, still differs for different beings according to the position from which they perceive it. Kant, however, treats the judgement as a _perception_; for if we apply his general assertion to this instance, we find him saying that what we judge the portion of the great circle to be essentially belongs to the _perception_ of it, and is valid for the _sensuous_ faculty of every human being, and that thereby it can be distinguished from what belongs to the same perception of a great circle accidentally, e. g. its apparent colour, which is valid only for a particular organization of this or that sense.[37] In this way he correlates what the great circle really is, as well as what it looks, with perception, and so is able to speak of what it is for perception. But, in fact, what the great circle is, is correlated with thought, and not with perception; and if we raise Kant's transcendental problem in reference not to perception but to thought, it cannot be solved in Kant's agnostic manner. For it is a presupposition of thinking that things are in themselves what we think them to be; and from the nature of the case a presupposition of thinking not only cannot be rightly questioned, but cannot be questioned at all. [36] Cf. pp. 72-3. [37] In the _Prol._, § 13, Remark iii, Kant carefully distinguishes judgement from perception, but destroys the effect of the distinction by regarding judgement as referring to what is relative to perception, viz. appearances. NOTE ON THE FIRST ANTINOMY