cally sequent to the assertion that it presupposes the thought
that the _determinations of phenomena_ are reciprocally sequent? The
passage in which the transition is effected is obscure and confused,
but it is capable of interpretation as soon as we see that it is
intended to run parallel to the proof of the second analogy which is
added in the second edition.[55] Kant apparently puts to himself the
question, 'How are we to know when we have a reciprocal sequence of
perceptions from which we can infer a coexistence in what we
perceived?' and apparently answers it thus: 'Since we cannot perceive
time, and therefore cannot perceive objects as dated in time with
respect to one another, we cannot begin with the apprehension of the
coexistence of two objects, and thence infer the possibility of
reciprocal sequence in our perceptions. This being so, the synthesis
of imagination in apprehension can indeed combine these perceptions
[these now being really considered as determinations or states of an
object perceived] in a reciprocal sequence, but there is so far no
guarantee that the sequence produced by the synthesis is not an
arbitrary product of the imagination, and therefore we cannot think of
it as a reciprocal sequence in objects. In order to think of such a
reciprocal sequence as not arbitrary but as constituting a real
sequence in objects [ = 'as grounded in the object'], we must think of
the states reciprocally sequent [as necessarily related and therefore]
as successive states of two coexisting substances which interact or
mutually determine one another's successive states. Only then shall we
be able to think of the coexistence of objects involved in the
reciprocal sequence as an objective fact, and not merely as an
arbitrary product of the imagination.' But, if this fairly expresses
Kant's meaning, his argument is clearly vitiated by two confusions. In
the first place, it confuses a subjective sequence of perceptions
which are alternately perceptions of A and of B, two bodies in space,
with an objective sequence of perceived states of bodies, [alpha]_{1}
[beta]_{2} [alpha]_{3} [beta]_{4}, which are alternately states of two
bodies A and B, the same thing being regarded at once as a perception
and as a state of a physical object. In the second place, mainly in
consequence of the first confusion, it confuses the necessity that the
perceptions of A and of B can follow one another alternately with the
necessity of succes