phenomenon, may manifest
itself in all gradations--from the occasional, quite innocent "white
lie" as it occurs in a perfectly normal individual to the pathological
lying exhibited in that mental state known as "pseudologia phantastica."
Its proper understanding, however, no matter under what circumstances
and to what degree it be manifested, will be possible only through a
strict adherence to the theory of absolute psychic determinism.

Lying, like every other psychic phenomenon, never occurs fortuitously,
but always has its psychic determinants which determine its type and
degree.

Naturally many of these determinants are quite obvious and readily
ascertainable. One has only to recall the lying and deceit practiced by
children. But many others, if indeed not most of them, are active in the
individual's unconscious motives and accessible objectively as well as
subjectively only with great difficulty and by means of special
psychological methods.

The degree of participation of unconscious motives in lying will be
determined in the individual case by the extent of repression
necessitated because of social, ethical, and aesthetic considerations. It
is for this reason that lying is most prevalent and exhibited with the
least amount of _critique_ in those individuals who either have never
developed those restraining tendencies which a normal appreciation of
social, ethical, and aesthetic consideration demands, or in whom these
restraining influences have been weakened or abolished by some exogenous
insult to the nervous system--as, for instance, the tendency to
fabrication dependent upon chronic alcoholism or morphinism. A beautiful
illustration of the latter type is furnished by General Ivolgin in
Dostoieffsky's "Idiot."

The child's tendency to lying and deceit is dependent to a large extent
upon the undeveloped state of those restraining forces. To state,
however, that this is the sole mechanism underlying the phenomenon of
lying would be to state only half a truth. For it is an undeniable fact
that, no matter how strongly endowed an individual may be with ethical
or moral feelings, still there comes a time when these are entirely
forgotten and neglected; when, finding himself in a stressful situation,
the instinctive demands for a most satisfactory and least painful
adjustment, no matter at what cost, assert themselves. It is then that
the lie serves the purpose of a more direct, less tedious gratification
of an