The supreme principle of the possibility of all intuition in relation
to sensibility was, according to our transcendental æsthetic, that all
the manifold in intuition be subject to the formal conditions of space
and time. The supreme principle of the possibility of it in relation to
the understanding is that all the manifold in it be subject to
conditions of the originally synthetical unity or apperception.[17] To
the former of these two principles are subject all the various
representations of intuition, in so far as they are given to us; to the
latter, in so far as they must be capable of conjunction in one
consciousness; for without this nothing can be thought or cognized,
because the given representations would not have in common the act Of
the apperception “I think” and therefore could not be connected in one
self-consciousness.
[17] Space and time, and all portions thereof, are intuitions;
consequently are, with a manifold for their content, single
representations. (See the Transcendental Æsthetic.) Consequently, they
are not pure conceptions, by means of which the same consciousness is
found in a great number of representations; but, on the contrary, they
are many representations contained in one, the consciousness of which
is, so to speak, compounded. The unity of consciousness is
nevertheless synthetical and, therefore, primitive. From this peculiar
character of consciousness follow many important consequences. (See §
21.)
Understanding is, to speak generally, the faculty Of cognitions. These
consist in the determined relation of given representation to an
object. But an object is that, in the conception of which the manifold
in a given intuition is united. Now all union of representations
requires unity of consciousness in the synthesis of them. Consequently,
it is the unity of consciousness alone that constitutes the possibility
of representations relating to an object, and therefore of their
objective validity, and of their becoming cognitions, and consequently,
the possibility of the existence of the understanding itself.