Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 47.djvu/828

810 mind as it sways that of the hypnotized adult. And there close by the child was Dolly, and the child's make-believe includes, as we all know, much important communication with Dolly. What more natural than that the idea should at once seize his imagination? But the laugh? Well, I am ready to admit that there was a touch of playful defiance here, of childish mischief. The expression on the mother's face showed him that his bold, absurd fancy had produced its half-startling, half-amusing effect; and there is nothing your little actor likes more than this after effect of startling you. But more, it gave him at the same instant a glimpse of the outside look of his fancy, of the unreality of the untruth; and the laugh probably had in it the delight of the little rebel, of the naughty, impish rogue who loves now and then to set law at defiance.

Momentary vivid fancy, the childish passion for acting a part, this backed by a strong desire to startle, and a turn for playful rebellion, seems to me to account for this and other similar varieties of early misstatement. Naughty they no doubt are in a measure; but is it not just that playing at being naughty which has in it nothing really bad, and is removed toto cœlo from downright honest lying? I speak the more confidently as to C 's case, as I happen to know that he was in his serious moods particularly, one might add pedantically, truthful.

A somewhat different case is where the vivid fancy underlying the misstatement leads to a more serious self-deception. The Worcester collection gives an example: "I was giving some cough sirup, and E, aged three years and two months, ran to me, saying, 'I am sick too, and I want some medicine.' She then tried to cough. Every time she would see me taking the sirup bottle afterward, she would begin to cough. The sirup was very sweet." This looks simply awful. But what if the child were of so imaginative a turn that the sight of* the sirup given to the sick child produced a perfect illusion of being herself sick—an illusion strong enough to cause the irritation and the cough? The idea may seem far-fetched, but deserves to be considered before we brand the child with the name liar.

The vivid, fanciful realization, which in this instance was sustained by the love of sweet things, is in many cases inspired by other and later developed feelings. How much false statement—and that not only among little children—is of the nature of exaggeration and directed to producing a strong effect! When, for example, the little four-year-old draws himself up and shouts exultantly, "See, mamma, how tall I am—I am growing so fast I shall soon be a giant," or boasts of his strength, and tells you the impossible things he is going to do, the element of braggadocio is on the surface and imposes on nobody.