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continued by Truth, and that of Hell cannot consist without it.
    Whereas the Italian sought to remind us that deceit is ever-present, and that it is therefore necessary for rulers to employ it on occasion, Browne saw things the other way round. Isn’t the truly remarkable thing the fact that truth is so powerful? Even devils rely on it when they’re among their own, because ‘all community is continued by truth’. The subversive implication of Browne’s argument is that our general aversion to deceit does not stem from a God-given morality or an innate instinct for truth so much as the need to keep the wheels of social life turning. Most decisions about whether or not to lie have little to do with whether the person concerned is an angel or a devil. We tell the truth because it suits us. And when it suits us, we lie.
    The majority of children learn what we might call ‘Browne’s Law’ instinctively, at home and in school. But a few remain impervious to it; they take a wrong turning. Persistent lying in older children is usually the sign of a deeper malaise: a way of venting frustrations, winning attention, or coping with deep insecurity. ‘Lying is a symptom,’ says Victoria Talwar. Children of parents in the process of divorcing, for example, often resort to manipulative lying to assert some control over a situation in the face of which they would otherwise feel helpless.
    In the words of Dr Nancy Darling of Oberlin University, Ohio, who specialises in the moral development of older children, lying is a ‘self-reinforcing activity’. Lies beget lies. If a lie works to get a child out of trouble, she might try it again, then she might need more lies to sustain her first lie. We all know how powerful the momentum of deceit can be: once a lie is told, it often requires another. When you’re knee-deep in lies it can seem easier to wade in further than to attempt an escape; before you know it you are reliant on them just to stay afloat. If a child’s whole sense of himself comes to depend on lies, it’s very hard for him to let go of them. ‘The time to catch a liar is before eight years of age,’ says Kang Lee, a professor at the University of Toronto and director of the Institute of Child Study. If a child is still lying habitually after the age of seven, she (or he) will probably continue to do so for years to come, even into adulthood; she’s hooked.
    The sooner a child learns that lying can be self-destructive, the better. The question of how children learn not to lie is as interesting as how they learn to lie in the first place. It’s also controversial. Do children require strict moral instruction and harsh punishment for lying – or should they be left to work it out as they go along?
    In 2009 Victoria Talwar was working on a study of the development of moral behaviour in children around the world, including in non-Western cultures. Having already visited China and Thailand, she was introduced by a friend of a friend to a school in West Africa. The school – let’s call it School A – was run along lines familiar to anyone with experience of a mainstream school in Britain or Canada. It was strict but not unreasonably so; misdemeanours were punished with verbal admonishments, the withdrawal of privileges, or detentions. There was no corporal punishment.
    When Talwar visited another school nearby, however, she encountered a stark contrast of methods. This school – School B – took a much more draconian approach to discipline, sticking closely to traditions established by the country’s former colonial masters, the French, in the first half of the twentieth century. The children were expected to conform to a strict code of behaviour and transgressions were harshly punished, often violently. Simply getting an answer wrong in class earned you a smack around the head. It was the job of one staff member – whom Talwar