f anything, worse, for the appearance is
actual only under exceptional circumstances. We may never see the
raindrops thus, or in Kant's language, have this 'appearance'; and
therefore, in general, an appearance of this kind is not actual but
only possible. The truth is that we can only distinguish something as
the thing in itself from an appearance, so long as we mean by the
thing in itself what Kant normally means by it, viz. something which
exists independently of perception and is not an appearance at
all.[34] That of which Kant is really thinking, and which he _calls_
the appearance which is the thing, in distinction from a mere
appearance, is not an appearance; on the contrary, it is the raindrops
themselves, which he describes as circular and as falling through
space, and which, as circular and falling, must exist and have these
characteristics in themselves apart from a percipient. Kant's formula
for an empirical thing, i. e. a thing which is an appearance, viz.
'that which in universal experience and under all different positions
with regard to the senses is in perception so and so determined', is
merely an attempt to achieve the impossible, viz. to combine in one
the characteristics of a thing and an appearance. While the reference
to _perception_ and to _position with regard to the senses_ implies
that what is being defined is an appearance, the reference to
_universal_ experience, to _all_ positions with regard to the senses,
and to that which _is so and so determined_ implies that it is a
thing. But, plainly, mention of position with regard to the senses, if
introduced at all, should refer to the _differences_ in perception due
to the different position of the object in particular cases. There is
nothing of which it can be said that we perceive it in the same way or
that it looks the same from _all_ positions. When Kant speaks of that
which under _all_ different positions with regard to the senses is so
and so determined, he is really referring to something in the
consideration of which all reference to the senses has been discarded;
it is what should be described as that which _in reality and apart
from_ all positions with regard to the senses is so and so determined;
and this, as such, cannot be an appearance. Again, the qualification
of 'is so and so determined' by 'in perception' is merely an attempt
to treat as relative to perception, and so as an appearance, what is
essentially independent of perception