Does Reid's view carry with it any absurdity?  It has seemed to some that it does. How, it might be asked, can something be remembered and hence be present before the mind while at the same time not in the present but in the past?  Isn't that like saying that is it possible to perceive objects that don't exist?  Reid would allow that nothing could be both present before the mind and at the same time past but insist that his theory entails no such consequence.  Reid claims that while, necessarily, the object of memory is in the past at the time it is remembered, nevertheless “the remembrance of it is a particular act of the mind which now exists, and of which we are conscious.” [Reid 1785, Essay III, Section I] That is, when one remembers p, the act of remembering is what is present (or better “occurring”) although p is not. We are currently aware of our act of remembering but the object of the act is in the past. 