U8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



psychologist; the one interested in the functional significance of the 

 act of writing as the expression of individuality; the other interested 

 in a minute analysis of this motor series, seeking to determine the 

 laws of expression that govern this particular act. In both investiga- 

 tions methods of research are being worked out with the ingenuity so 

 characteristic of scientists of to-day. Each investigation as it 

 progresses will be found to encroach upon the other. Erom the two 

 will come the future science of handwriting. A resume of the work 

 that has already been done has perhaps its value at the present time. 



Eirst of all it may be profitable to consider the investigations that 

 have sought to determine under scientific control whether or not the 

 graphologists have made good their claims. It is to France that we 

 owe, not only the most carefully wrought-out system of graphology, 

 but also the most carefully thought-out control of that art. In an 

 investigation covering many months, Alfred Binet, the director of the 

 psychological laboratory at the Sorbonne, planned and executed a series 

 of carefully controlled experiments designed to test the ability of the 

 graphologists to determine from handwriting the sex, the age, the 

 intelligence and the character of the writer. Binet, who guarded care- 

 fully against all sources of error, so planned his experiments as to be 

 able to state in figures the percentage of error in the interpretations 

 of the graphologists and thus render possible a comparison of the 

 graphologists' successes with those that might reasonably be expected 

 if chance alone determined the outcome. The results showed unmis- 

 takably that the graphologist was able to determine with but a small 

 percentage of error the sex of the writer and also, but with less cer- 

 tainty, the intelligence of the writer. The interpretation of age and 

 character offered still greater difficulties. To render the tests perfectly 

 definite and to avoid the error that might arise from the personal 

 equation in estimation of intelligence and character, Binet in his tests 

 upon them made use, on the one hand, of the handwriting of men 

 famous in literature and science and, on the other hand, of specimens 

 of the handwriting of great criminals, whose biographies were matter 

 of legal record. 



Binet's investigation, apart from his general conclusions, brought 

 out some interesting facts. He found, for instance, that there existed 

 not only very great differences in the skill with which different 

 graphologists made their interpretations, but also that there were those 

 uninitiated in the art whose readings at times even the professional 

 graphologist might envy. An observation akin, in a way, to the 

 common experience that some people remember and recognize hand- 

 writings, as others do faces, with extraordinary facility and accuracy. 

 Minute differences have for them undoubtedly a value not experienced 

 by others. Binet found, moreover, that the professional's skill in 



