156 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



Much work to-day still needs to be done in the collection, according 

 to well-formulated plans, of material for the study of handwriting. 

 In the matter of family resemblances in chirography, for instance, there 

 is scarcely any material at hand, a fact not surprising since such work 

 of collection must needs run over years. An instructive series of 

 family autographs would be one showing handwriting at different 

 periods of development. Any resemblance here in the handwriting at 

 the same period of life of individuals differing considerably in age 

 would testify directly to hereditary motor tendencies of some fineness, 

 since suggestibility as a contributing cause would be ruled out. 



Doubtless the day is far in the future when we shall be able to 

 solve such historic enigmas as Mary, Queen of Scots, by an appeal as 

 Tarde, the French sociologist, suggests, to her handwriting; or be 

 proficient enough in the art of interpretation to proffer our services, as 

 other enthusiasts predict, to the benevolent advocates of scientific 

 match-making; but such suggestions carry with them a faith in the 

 interpretation of this finest, subtlest of movements which time will 

 perhaps justify. Nor will a scientific interpretation of individual 

 chirography come merely to gratify an idle curiosity or a secret malice. 

 It will be of immense value. All the arts remedial and educative will 

 have need of it. Physician and educator, criminologist and sociologist, 

 will make their appeal to it. Strange, if in time these tiny written 

 gestures should be found to be all-revealing; if in them should be 

 found the most intimate expression of the dramatic instinct. 



