s
work on _Lying Children_, gives the case of a little girl who by her
good behaviour and affectionate disposition had won the love of her
foster-parents. One day they were reading aloud the report of a
scandalous trial, while the child was in the room playing with her
dolls, and to all appearance paying no attention to the reading. A few
days later the foster-parents saw the little girl putting her dolls
together in an indecent posture. In answer to earnest inquiries, the
child said she was only doing what someone had once done to her; she
then went on to make detailed and serious accusations against certain
other persons. A clever and experienced physician was asked to
investigate the matter before any application was made to the law
courts. As a result of a physical examination of the girl, he declared
that what she described could not possibly have taken place; and
ultimately she admitted that the whole accusation was false. As a reason
for her lies, she said, "qu'elle avait voulu faire comme les dames que
l'on avait mises dans le journal." Such imaginative activity may occur
in healthy children, but it is in the case of those with a morbid
inheritance that we have especially to reckon with these possibilities.
As with the grown woman, so with the child, the degenerative form of
hysteria makes those subject to it untrustworthy witnesses. This applies
above all to accusations of sexual offences. Feeble-mindedness is also
dangerous in this connexion, for its existence is apt to be overlooked
by the judge, although an expert examination of the witness--who, in
most of these cases, is of the female sex--would facilitate the
diagnosis. Among the feeble-minded, we find, not only sexually premature
individuals, but also persons with a tendency to pathological deceit,
this latter sometimes manifesting itself in childhood, and of course
lessening or completely abolishing the subject's credibility as a
witness to the occurrence of alleged sexual offences.

These considerations must not lead us to the opposite extreme, of
altogether discrediting the assertions of child-witnesses; but they
should convince us of the need for the recognition of a source of
fallacy often completely overlooked by parents, namely, the indulgence
by children in sexual imaginative activity, and the frequent existence
of unsuspected sexual enlightenment. To this extent only do such
questions form part of my subject. Following Hans Gross, I have on page