So Reid's account of memory is “direct” in that he insists that we have “immediate knowledge of things past.” A remembrance is an act of the mind and it is in virtue of this act that we have knowledge of the past.  So Reid flatly rejects what some have claimed to be a datum: when one is remembering what one is remembering must be present at the time of the remembering.  Indeed, not only does Reid reject this principle, but he accepts its contrary: when one is remembering what one is remembering must not be present when one is remembering, but must be in the past instead.  