WHY CHILDREN LIE. 385 



lower animals, but there is a natural prejudice against applying 

 similar rules to men. 



Likewise is this true concerning man from his first growth. 

 He is born with the possibility of various characteristics and in- 

 dividual peculiarities. Just exactly what these will be and how 

 far they will develop depend to a considerable extent upon his 

 environment. Of course, it goes without saying that heredity 

 counts for much, although heredity is not everything. Most of 

 all is it not supreme in view of the fact that our system of edu- 

 cation and culture has the strongest tendency for leveling, for 

 mediocrity. Our infant education, our school life, domestic life, 

 social life, all tend to trim away whatever of originality good 

 or otherwise the individual may possess. Our methods are 

 mainly inhibitory : we are constantly talking about what one 

 must not do. The decalogue itself, the declaration of our moral 

 and religious code, is couched mostly in terms of negative com- 

 mand. Thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not lie, thou shalt not 

 worship idols, it says ; and this is far different, when reasoned 

 about broadly, from speak the truth, be honest, love God. 



Given, then, a tendency to variations from the normal, it fol- 

 lows that our principal care should be to ascertain what this nor- 

 mal is, and to conform to it. But, so far as common experience 

 goes, this is the last thing to be carefully worked out. The tend- 

 encies to variation are emphasized by the frequent liability to in- 

 ferior physical conditions. Some of these are so remote that they 

 would be thought of only by the physician- psychologist, while 

 others are of such common occurrence that everj' practitioner is 

 familiar with them. Now, one of the most striking of these un- 

 fortunately not frequently noticed except in its ultimate exag- 

 gerations is that disturbance of conception produced locally in 

 the cortex of the brain by which the person is unable to distin- 

 guish between the internal processes and their external causal 

 conditions. If the ability to differentiate is impaired, an halluci- 

 nation is present, dependent upon processes in those parts of the 

 brain which preserve memory pictures of the most varied kinds. 

 As the result of this condition we may have expressions and acts 

 which are seemingly at utter variance with the actual premises 

 from which they start. The familiar example of the different 

 views which two knights looking upon opposite sides of a shield 

 take, is an old and trite attempt at explanation of this condi- 

 tion. In many, many cases it is not merely that people in giving 

 conflicting accounts of a fact see isolated and separate parts 

 thereof ; very frequently there is a wider basis : the condition 

 certainly pathological in its results of broken connection between 

 internal processes and their external causal conditions. Thus, a 

 child may be reproved by a teacher : we should expect that nor- 



VOL. XLVII. 32 



