But even this somewhat sympathetic reading of Locke creates problems.  For Locke's view entails not just that the mind has the power to produce these ideas but also that we have the ability (at least much of the time) to recognize these ideas as ones (or like ones) we've seen before.  Yet this ability would seem to itself presuppose memory.  As Reid says, this recognition (that this idea has been seen before) “supposes a remembrance of those we had before, otherwise the similitude or identity could not be perceived” [Reid 1785, Essay III, Chapter VII]. Far from illuminating the nature of memory, then, Locke's version of the RTM merely presupposes what it sets out to explain.