It is not the philosopher who first hints at the mendacity of memory, but the "plain man" who takes careful note of what really happens in the world of his personal experience.

Thus, we hear persons, quite innocent of speculative doubt, qualifying an assertion made on personal recollection by the proviso, "unless my memory has played me false." And even less reflective persons, including many who pride themselves on their excellent memory, will, when sorely pressed, make a grudging admission that they may, after all, be in error.

Perhaps the weakest degree of such an admission, and one which allows to the conceding party a semblance of victory, is illustrated in the "last word" of one who has boldly maintained a proposition on the strength of individual recollection, but begins to recognize the instability of his position: "I either witnessed the occurrence or dreamt it." This is sufficient to prove that, with all people's boasting about the infallibility of memory, there are many who have a shrewd suspicion that some of its asseverations will not bear a very close scrutiny.
_Psychology of Memory._ In order to understand the errors of memory, we must proceed, as in the case of illusions of perception, by examining a little into the nature of the normal or correct process.
An act of recollection is said by the psychologist to be purely representative in character, whereas perception is partly representative, partly preservative.

To recall an object to the mind is to reconstruct the percept in the absence of a sense-impression.[112] An act of memory is obviously distinguished from one of simple imagination by the presence of a conscious reference to the past.

Every recollection is an immediate reapprehension of some past object or event.