eem to argue against the intermediate position
here ascribed to the world of phenomena--according to which it is less than
things in themselves and more than subjective representation--which, since
they explain the phenomenon as a mere representation, leave room for only
two factors (on the one hand, the thing in itself = that in the thing which
cannot be represented; on the other, the thing for me = my representation
of the thing). In fact, the distinction between the phenomenon "itself"
and the representation which the individual now has of it and now does not
have, is far from being everywhere adhered to with desirable clearness; and
wherever it is impossible to substitute that which has been represented
and that which may be represented or possible intuitions for "mere
representations in me," we must acknowledge that there is a departure
from the standpoint which is assumed in some places with the greatest
distinctness. The latter finds unequivocal expression, among other places,
in the "Analogies of Experience" and the "Deduction of the Pure Concepts
of the Understanding," Sec. 2, No. 4 (first edition). The second of these
passages speaks of one and the same universal experience, in which all
perceptions are represented in thoroughgoing and regular connection, and of
the thoroughgoing affinity of phenomena as the basis of the possibility
of the association of representations. This affinity is ascribed to the
objects of the senses, not to the representations, whose association is
rather the result of the affinity, and not to the things in themselves, in
regard to which the understanding has no legislative power.

The relation between the thing in itself and the phenomenon is also
variable. Now they are regarded as entirely heterogeneous (that which can
never be intuited exists in a mode opposed to that of the intuited and
intuitable), and now as analogous to each other (non-intuitable properties
of the thing in itself correspond to the intuitable characteristics of the
phenomenon). The former is the case when it is said that phenomena are in
space and time, while things in themselves are not; that in the first of
these classes natural causation rules, and in the second freedom; that
in the one-conditioned existence alone is found, in the other
unconditioned.[1] But just as often things in themselves and phenomena are
conceived as similar to one another, as two sides of the same object,[2]
of which one, like the counte