 But how does Leibniz’s conception of the representation of space square with Kant’s reading? In his latter letter to Clarke, Leibniz attempts to show that we can form an idea of space without relying on the notion that space is somehow independent of the relations of objects (L 5: 47). Since he talks of people “observing” various objects and their relations to one another, it can sound as if he thinks that the idea of space is obtained through sensory experience of object relations. But which idea of space does he have in mind? In other words, what is the content of the idea of space that he has in mind? He may mean that one can gain a rough and ready idea of space—of a three-dimensional magnitude that is not itself a property of any object or grouping of objects—in the way that he describes. But surely one cannot gain the mathematical view of space in this way, for several reasons that Leibniz expresses in the New Essays (as noted above): (a) space and time are entities in pure mathematics; (b) space is a continuum, and one certainly cannot obtain that notion from the sense perception of object relations; and, (c) sense perception will generate a confused idea, but to have a clear and distinct idea of space, one indicating its properties as a mathematical entity, requires something other than sense perception. So it seems reasonable to distinguish between an ordinary, everyday conception of space—one in which we need not consider whether it is infinite or finite, infinitely divisible or finitely divisible, or perhaps whether the parallel postulate holds, etc.—and our geometric conception of space. There can be little doubt that Kant has our geometric conception of space in mind throughout the Transcendental Aesthetic—this is clear in the third argument of the metaphysical exposition and throughout the transcendental exposition.