nd even dislocating certain portions. Besides this passive
process of transformation, there is a more active one in which our
present minds co-operate. In memory, as in perception and introspection,
there is a process of preparation or preadjustment of mind, and here
will be found room for what I had called active error. This may be
illustrated by the operation of "interpreting" an old manuscript which
has got partially obliterated, or of "restoring" a faded picture; in
each of which operations error will be pretty sure to creep in through
an importation of the restorer's own ideas into the relic of the past.

Just as when distant objects are seen mistily our imaginations come into
play, leading us to fancy that we see something completely and
distinctly, so when the images of memory become dim, our present
imagination helps to restore them, putting a new patch into the old
garment. If only there is some relic of the past event preserved, a bare
suggestion of the way in which it may have happened will often suffice
to produce the conviction that it actually did happen in this way. The
suggestions that naturally arise in our minds at such times will bear
the stamp of our present modes of experience and habits of thought.
Hence, in trying to reconstruct the remote past, we are constantly in
danger of importing our present selves into our past selves.

The kind of illusion of memory which thus depends on the spontaneous or
independent activity of present imagination is strikingly illustrated in
the curious cases of mistaken identity with which the proceedings of
our law courts supply us from time to time. When a witness in good
faith, but erroneously, affirms that a man is the same as an old
acquaintance of his, we may feel sure that there is some striking point
or points of similarity between the two persons. But this of itself
would only partly account for the illusion, since we often see new faces
that, by a number of curious points of affinity, call up in a
tantalizing way old and familiar ones. What helps in this case to
produce the illusion is the preconception that the present man is the
witness's old friend. That is to say, his recollection is partly true,
though largely false. He does really recall the similar feature,
movement, or tone of voice; he only seems to himself to recall the rest
of his friend's appearance; for, to speak correctly, he projects the
present impression into the past, and constructs his frie