ther hand one who is closely allied to the mentally diseased.
The difference between the pathological liar and the habitual criminal,
aside from the moral phase of lying, is perhaps but a very slight one,
when we keep in mind that in both instances we are dealing with
individuals who habitually resort to a form of reaction in their
attempts at adjustment to reality which aims at a direct, simple, and
least resistant means for gratification. In both we are dealing with a
type of mental organization which is primarily incompetent to face
reality in an adequate, socially acceptable manner, and therefore has to
resort to constant deceit and lying, and in which those inhibitions
determined by social, ethical, and aesthetic considerations are equally
impotent. The marked egotistic trend which constantly comes to the
surface in the habitual liar when he attempts to play the part of the
hero and central figure in the most fantastic, bizarre, and impossible
adventures is likewise frequently at the bottom of the escapades of the
habitual criminal. The two traits are frequently, though by no means
always, concomitant manifestations in the same individual.

When, in 1891, Anton Delbrueck[2] published the first comprehensive study
of the pathological liar, he not only succeeded in very accurately
delineating a more or less distinct psychopathological entity, but also
furnished additional proof in substantiation of the fact, well known in
psychiatry but as yet unrecognized by the legal profession, that the
transition from mental health to mental disease is not a sudden one;
that any dividing line which would have for its purpose the strict
separation of the mentally sound from the mentally diseased must of
necessity be a purely imaginary one, and one not justified by existing
facts.

The transition from absolute mental health to distinct mental disease is
never delimited by distinct landmarks, but shows any number of
intermediary gradations. Nowhere is this better illustrated than in the
pathological liar. Here one sees how a psychic phenomenon regularly
manifested by perfectly normal individuals may gradually acquire such
dimensions and dominate the individual to such an extent as to render
him frankly insane.

To endeavor, however, to definitely state where normality leaves off and
disease begins would be, to say the least, to attempt something
well-nigh impossible. And yet this is just what the jurist constantly
demands of the