LYING


All lies are not bad, nor all liars immoral. A young child who cannot
yet understand the obligations of truthfulness cannot be held morally
accountable for his departure from truth. Lying is of three kinds.

(1.) _The imaginative lie._ (2.) _The evasive lie._ (3.) _The politic
lie._

[Sidenote: Imaginative "Lying"]

(1.) It is rather hard to call the imaginative lie a lie at all. It is
so closely related to the creative instinct which makes the poet
and novelist and which, common among the peasantry of a nation,
is responsible for folk-lore and mythology, that it is rather an
intellectual activity misdirected than a moral obliquity. Very
imaginative children often do not know the difference between what
they imagine and what they actually see. Their minds eye sees as
vividly as their bodily eye; and therefore they even believe their own
statements. Every attempt at contradiction only brings about a fresh
assertion of the impossible, which to the child becomes more and more
certain as he hears himself affirming its existence.

Punishment is of no use at all in the attempt to regulate this
exuberance. The child's large statements should be smiled at and