t in general, far from being a form of conduct deliberately and
consciously selected by an individual for the purpose of gaining a
certain known end, is in a great majority of instances wholly determined
by unconscious motives, by instinctive biologic forces over which the
individual has little or no control. This is one of the factors which
determines the growing realization among present-day psychiatrists of
the extreme difficulty to state in a given case which is malingered and
which genuine in the symptomatology. That such views should encounter
opposition among our jurists is perfectly natural, threatening as it
does with complete annihilation that wholly artificial concept of the
"freedom of will" upon which our laws are based.

In touching upon the subjects of "responsibility" and "freedom of will"
I incur the danger of adding to the general misunderstanding which still
exists between the physician and jurist concerning crime and the
criminal.

Speaking from personal convictions, I see no real justification whatever
for this misunderstanding, unless it be the difference in the mode of
approach to the subject on the part of the two. The jurist is compelled
by existing statutes to look upon crime largely in the abstract--not as
it concerns the individual who committed the deed, but as it is affected
by the statutes covering it. The physician, on the other hand, sees in
the criminal act a form of reaction to an intrinsic or extrinsic
stimulus by a feeling, willing, and acting human being, and proceeds
accordingly to analyze in a concrete manner the forces which brought
about this particular form of reaction in this particular individual. As
a result of this mode of approach to the subject he is enabled to
conceive of "responsibility" as something fluid, something extremely
variable, and which may be affected by a thousand-and-one things, and
not as something absolutely fixed and invariable and which may be
definitely foreseen by a set of statutes.

Any attempt to bring about this most desirable uniformity of approach to
the subject of criminology between the jurist and the physician must be
based primarily upon intensive study of the personality of the criminal.
Such is the aim of this paper.

II

In the last analysis malingering is to be looked upon as a special form
of lying, and its proper understanding will necessitate a clear insight
into lying in general.

Lying, a very natural and generally prevalent