The image was larger when called up after ten or twenty minutes than it was before.

This might be due to a purely mental process; or possibly to a sort of spreading-out of the brain process in the visual centre, giving the result that whenever, by the revival of the brain process, the mental image is brought back again to mind, this spreading out shows itself by an enlargement of the memory image.

However it may be explained, the indications of it were unmistakable--unless, of course, some other reason can be given for the uniform direction of the errors; and it is further seen in other experiments carried out by Messrs.

W.and B.and by Dr.K.[9] at a later date.
[Footnote 9: Dr.F.Kennedy, demonstrator, now professor in the University of Colorado (results not yet published).] If this tendency to the enlargement of our memories with the lapse of time should be found to be a general law of memory, it would have interesting bearings.

It would suggest, for instance, an explanation of the familiar fact that the scenes of the past seem to us, when we return to them, altogether too small.