Frazer.] 4d4 [j an . ie, 



was a different one, but I think that the analogy with the above 

 cases will appear strong on due reflection. With a given mental image 

 of what one desires to write before one ; and with a given relation 

 of will-power, nerve sensitiveness and muscular force, the same signa- 

 ture could be repeated a thousand times, provided that all these con- 

 ditions were invariable, and no others were superadded. So far from this 

 being the case, however, every one of the factors just named which pro- 

 duce a signature, depends on physical and mental — in other words, on 

 extraneous influences, to a very large degree. The movement com- 

 menced to effect an up stroke is met by an unexpected obstacle in the 

 paper, a slight twinge in the shoulder, or a sudden noise, and the result- 

 ing line would show (were we sufficiently cognizant of the detailed 

 working of all the complicated parts of our mental machinery to inter- 

 pret it) just the order in which our different sentient and executive func- 

 tions have been affected, and to what extent. But while these ever-recur- 

 ring accidents result in preventing any signature from being made exactly 

 as intended,* the fact that no two of them effect the same kind or amount 

 of deviation leaves it in the power of the experimenter to extract from this 

 process the "ideal" signature — a signature which probably never was seen 

 as it appears, and yet which so combines all the visible results of a par- 

 ticular will acting on a particular arm to trace on paper a known design 

 with a pen or pencil, that it may justly be called the type signature of that 

 writer. What was said of the resemblance of every object of a group of 

 objects which have any claim to be associated together, to the composite 

 made of that group, even tbough it differ widely from other members of 

 the same group ; is true of handwriting. It has been remarked that the 

 composite signature is an ideal, and never was realized. This is because the 

 lines along which the strongest re enforcements are made are those where 

 locally varying deviations most frequently cross. To put it in another 

 form, suppose the lines a b, c and d to be in agreement as follows : At the 

 point a', b does not cross, but c and d do. At b', c does not cross, but d 

 and a do. At c', d does not cross, but a and b do. The line which would 

 represent to the eye part of the ideal signature, would be that traced 

 the points a', b', c', d', because those points having superposed lines of 

 three out of the four signatures and would be darker, while the variations 

 at each of these points would be indistinct. 



In examining with care a composite signature as just described, it at 

 once arrests the attention that the variations are not equally distributed 

 over the entire body of the letter, but that there are regions of each letter 

 where variations of a particular kind are noticeable, and other regions 

 where there are few or none. The more the manuscripts of an individual 

 are compared the more forcibly does this fact appear, until finally one is 

 tempted to conclude that after a handwriting is once formed, it cannot 



*The word "intended" is used to imply the effect which would be produced 

 by the action of the will through the hand on the paper if not modified by these 

 accidents, and not solely conscious intention. 



