80 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. II. No. 29. 



much interested in the expression (i.e., the 

 formation) of the hand in Lavater's ' Phy- 

 sionomische Fragmente.' In a mass of lit- 

 erature Herr Preyer fails to find either what 

 would affirm or denj' that Goethe had orig- 

 inally conceived the idea and written to 

 Lavater of it. After all, he thinks Goethe 

 might have imparted this orally to Lavater, 

 and he still clings to the belief that the tra- 

 dition is true which ascribes to Goethe the 

 belief that actually men could be judged by 

 their handwriting. 



This lame and nonsequitur logic is un- 

 fortunatel}^ applied throughout the book, 

 and mars its value to an eai'nest student, in 

 spite of the exceedingly good and faithfully 

 executed illustrations. In fact, these latter 

 not infrequently produce the effect on the 

 reader which a series of splendid stereoptieon 

 views of Paris would exercise on an audi- 

 ence listening to a lecture on chiromancy. 



Professor Preyer's treatment of his sub- 

 ject is infinitely more serious and heavy, 

 but not nearly as amusing and plausible as 

 that of Don Felix de Salamanca (Chatto & 

 Windus, Piccadilly, London, 1879, The 

 May fair Librarj') in ' The Philosojyhj' of 

 Handwriting,' or, in other words, graphol- 

 ogy. (Don Felix, for some reason, insists on 

 calling this chiromancy, which is generally 

 understood to be palmistry.) It is probable 

 that Prej'er was familiar with this work 

 from the similarity of expressions which oc- 

 cur in the two, thus Don Felix says (p. 7): 

 "A strong resemblance is oftimes discerni- 

 ble between the handwritings of A'arious 

 members of a family," etc. Pi'eyer says: 

 " Dasselbe gilt von der Aehnlichkeit der El- 

 tern and Kinder, der Geschwister unterein- 

 ander. Ein Familientypus der Schriffc, 

 wie ein solcher des Gauges oder der Mimik 

 und S])rechweise tritt, oft deutlich zu Tage" 

 (p. 3). Salamanca observes: "Indeed, it 

 is not overstraining the limits of this theme 

 to assert that not oulj' are the idiosyncras- 

 ies of individual scribes proclaimed by their 



penmanship, but even the peculiarities of 

 whole nations" (p. 7). Prej'er puts it: 

 " Denn so wie es Nationalphysiognomien, 

 Xationaltrachten, nationale Geberden geibt, 

 giebt es auch Xationalhandschi-iften " (Ein- 

 leitung, p. 1). 



In spite of the fact that the earlier author 

 beti-aj's (quite unconsciously) as thorough 

 a knowledge of the bibliography of the sub- 

 ject, and maintains equally mth his German 

 follower a belief in his ability to reach 

 some traits of a man's character through his 

 handwriting, j'et he does not push this airy 

 fancj' to the extreme Umits of absurdity by 

 pretending it can take the place of the ordi- 

 nary and slower methods of observation and 

 experience. 



To sum up Professor Prej^er's claims to 

 merit in his book: He has industry, accu- 

 rate illustrations and truthfulness in state- 

 ment to his credit; but on the other side of 

 the ledger are lack of logical method, dis- 

 cursiveness, and predominance of the un- 

 scientific imagination. 



There is some truth in his main conten- 

 tion, i. €., that a handwriting is influenced 

 by the character of its author. It is equally 

 true that the appearance of the creases and 

 worn parts of a pair of old shoes is also 

 indicative of the character of the wearer ; 

 but neither is able, in this matter-of-fact 

 world of ours, apart from the dream land of 

 Sherlock Holmes et id omne genus, to give 

 a truth-loving student the means of attain- 

 ing to more than the vaguest knowledge of 

 the character of the individual to whom it 

 owes its existence. 



It is unfortunate at this time, when an 

 honest effort is being made to extract from 

 handwriting certain legitimate information 

 of value to the- courts of law, that these 

 fanciful productions shoi;ld appear, with the 

 result of confusing the layman as to their 

 respective objects very much as astrology 

 and astronomy were once confounded bj' 

 laymen of yore. Persifor Frazer. 



