prevaricating tendency before or after this time. When we came
to review our material with this chapter in mind we found no
sufficient verification of the fact that there was any such thing
as episodic pathological lying, apart from peculiar
manifestations in cases of epilepsy, hysteria, and other mental
abnormalities. A short career of extensive lying, not
unfrequently met with in work for juvenile courts and other
social agencies, seems, judging from our material, to be always
so mixed up with other delinquencies or unfortunate sex
experiences that the lying, after all, cannot be regarded as
purposeless. It is indulged in most often in an attempt to
disguise undesirable truths. That false accusations and even
self-accusations are engaged in for the same purpose goes without
saying. The girl who donned man's clothes, left home and lived
for months a life of lies was seeking an adventure which would
offset intolerable home conditions. The young woman who after
seeing something of the pleasures of the world was placed in a
strict religious home where she told exaggerated stories about
her own bad behavior, was endeavoring to get more freedom
elsewhere. A young fellow whom we found to be a most persistent
and consistent liar was discovered to have been already well
schooled in the art of professional criminalistic
self-protection. So it has gone. Investigation of each of these
episodic cases has shown the fabrications to emanate either from
a distinctly abnormal personality or to partake of a character
which rules them out of the realm of pathological lying. In our
cases of temporary adolescent psychoses lying was rarely found a
puzzling feature; the basic nature of the case was too easily
discoverable.