However vague this reference may be, it must be there to constitute the process one of recollection.
The every-day usages of language do not at first sight seem to consistently observe this distinction.

When a boy says, "I remember my lesson," he appears to be thinking of the present only, and not referring to the past.

In truth, however, there is a vague reference to the fact of retaining a piece of knowledge through a given interval of time.
Again, when a man says, "I recollect your face," this means, "Your face seems familiar to me." Here again, though there is no definite reference to the past, there is a vague and indefinite one.
It is plain from this definition that recollection is involved in all recognition or identification.

Merely to be aware that I have seen a person before implies a minimum exercise of memory.

Yet we may roughly distinguish the two actions of perception and recollection in the process of recognition.