that intentional deception is apt to show itself toward certain people only. There is many a schoolboy who would think it no dishonor to say what is untrue to those he dislikes, especially by way of getting them into hot water, though he would feel it mean and base to lie to his mother or his father, and bad form to lie to the head master. Similar distinctions show themselves in earlier stages, and are another point of similarity between the child and the savage, whose ideas of truthfulness seem to be truthfulness for my people only. This is a side of the subject which would repay fuller inquiry.
Another aspect of the subject which has been but little investigated is the influence of habit in the domain of lying and the formation of persistent permanent lies. The impulse to stick to an untruth when once uttered is very human, and in the case of the child is enforced by the fear of discovery. This applies not only to falsehoods foisted on persons in authority, but to those by which clever boys and girls take pleasure in befooling the inferior wits of others. In this way there grow up in the nursery and in the playground traditional myths and legends which are solemnly believed by the simple-minded. Such invention is in part the outcome of the "pleasures of the imagination." Yet it is probable that this is in all cases re-enforced not only by the wish to produce a showy effect, but by the love of power which in the child not endowed with physical prowess is apt to show itself in hoodwinking and practical joking.
Closely connected with this establishment of permanent falsehoods is the contagiousness of lying. The propagation of falsehood is apt to be promoted by a certain tremulous admiration for the hardihood of the lie and by the impulse of the rebel which never quite slumbers even in the case of fairly obedient children. I suspect, however, that it is in all cases largely due to the force of suggestion. The falsehood boldly anounced is apt to captivate the mind and hold it under a kind of spell.
This effect of suggestion in generating falsehood is very marked in those pathological or semi-pathological cases where children have been led to give false testimony. It is now known that it is quite possible to provoke in children between the ages of six and fifteen by simple affirmation, whether in the waking or in the sleeping state, illusions of memory, so that they are ready to assert that they saw things happen which they had never seen.[1]
- ↑ M. Motet was one of the first to call attention to the forces of childish imagination, and the effects of suggestion in the false testimonies of children. Les faux temoignages des enfants devant la justice, 1887. The subject has been further elucidated by Dr. Bérillon.
