Note 9 — Chapter XXXI · THE REGARD FOR TRUTH AND GOOD FAITH (concluded)

Besides statements referred to above, see Dobrizhoffer, Account of the Abipones, ii. 137; Hennepin, New Discovery of a Vast Country in America between New France and New Mexico, ii. 70; Dall, Alaska, p. 398 (Aleuts); Oldfield, in Trans. Ethn. Soc. N.S. iii. 255 (West Australian natives). “The natives of Africa,” says Livingstone (Expedition to the Zambesi, p. 309), “have an amiable of desire to please, and often tell what they imagine will be gratifying, rather than the uninteresting naked truth.” An English sportsman, after firing at an antelope, inquired of his dark attendant, “Is it wounded?” The answer was, “Yes! the ball went right into his heart.” These mortal wounds never proving fatal, he asked a friend, who understood the language, to explain to the man that he preferred the truth in every case. “He is my father,” replied the native, “and I thought he would be displeased if I told him that he never hits at all.” The wish to please is likewise a fertile source of untruth in children, especially girls (Sully, Studies of Childhood, p. 256).