The easiest way to check this general law is, in this case, to examine how many conformities we find when comparing the one word 'Battle' which is contained in both manuscripts1. The word contains only six letters, and shows not less than eleven identical features. According to the theory of probabilities we would have to multiply the figure of the probability of the first mentioned conformity by the various figures of the other eleven, and we would arrive at a bigger sum than that of the whole population of our globe, which of course would mean a conclusive proof of identity.

The B is written in the form of 13. At that time the figure 1 was written with an up and a down stroke, as it is still done on the Continent; both figures are linked up without lifting the pen. The first downstroke in the form of the figure 1 is higher than the adjoining 3, and in each case precisely 2 mm. higher when measured in the original. After the B there is in both cases a considerable interval, and then the rest of the word is accomplished in one single stroke. The inter-space between the a and the downstroke of the first t is in both cases larger than all the other inter-spaces of the word. The first t is in both cases crossed precisely at two-thirds of its height, and at the same time the bar forms tangent striking the upper point of the second t, which in both cases does not reach the basic line. In both cases the l has only one-half of the upper projection of the first t, despite the fact that both proportions constitute a divergence from the normal Anglo-Saxon alphabet which prescribes exactly the opposite size proportions. The e in both cases forms that pleasing shape which we call a final garland, and the a in both cases is closed but without being tied up at the top.

a

(b) Even more surprising are the specimens illustrated by Figs. 2 and 2 a. They were both written by the Scotch painter, Alexander, who died a few months ago in Edinburgh. He was born without arms and painted and wrote with his left foot and sometimes with his mouth. His portraits were exhibited at the Royal Scottish Academy, and he was also successful as a miniaturist. Fig. 2 represents Alexander's footwriting, Fig. 2 a his mouth-writing. They seem to be absolutely different from each other, and so they are, if one does not know that the size proportions have been altered for the sake of an easier comparison. The mouth-writing has been taken from a miniature pen drawing, Fig. 2b. The foot-writing is produced by pencil, and its size is four times bigger than the mouth-writing, which has been produced with

1 In my book, The Psychology of Handwriting (George Allen & Unwin, Ltd.), pp. 215-18, I have examined both scripts also from other points of view.

a pen. The miniature is so small that the points of the pen were certainly not adequate to the fine strokes which the writer would have produced if he had not been handicapped by his mechanical means. The analyst has to keep in his mind the whole series of differences which exist between all the conditions under which one produces a foot-writing and those prevailing when mouth-writing is performed. When we write with the foot the movement originating in our brain and starting from our hip has to be transmitted over various coupling bars or joints and muscles, whereas quite different muscles are involved when we write with our mouth and the whole head joins in the movement. Our eyes, the censor of the movement, are at rest when we write with the foot, and control our activity at a distance of say 120 cm., whereas when writing with our mouth our eyes squint at the paper and share the whole movement.

We are supplied only with three words written with the mouth for comparing them with the four lines of the pediscript. Nevertheless seven symptoms contained in the pediscript can be authenticated in these three words written with the mouth. I mention only two out of these seven, namely, those which under these circumstances have a special demonstrative force. One must keep in mind the physical difficulty which one has, when writing with the mouth or toes, in interrupting the writing to lift pen from paper for the sole purpose of crossing a t, and of returning to the spot where one has lifted the pen, and of going on in the same direction as before the interruption. Such a complicated performance is the more remarkable because the legibility of a t is not at all improved by the crossing bar. The wanting to interrupt the writing for such a detail must be deeply rooted in the writer's mind when he keeps to this habit under two so different and difficult conditions.

If we put the question whether or no the writer crosses the t's in both kinds of his scripts, the probability would of course be only onehalf, or because of the very difficult and different circumstances, say one-seventh, and therefore we could not speak of a special demonstrative force. But there are thousands of possibilities of how to shape and where to place a t-bar-if one writes it at all-and we have to examine first in what peculiar way the t is crossed in the pediscript and then to check whether the crossing be produced in quite the same way in the mouth script. The bar in the pediscript starts in four cases at the right side of the t-stem, practically without crossing it, is placed very high, is prolonged, begins thicker, and ends in a pointed stroke. One marks the same peculiarity in the mouth script.

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The experiments mentioned above have proved among other things that the way in which the writer emphasizes either his upper projections or his lower ones, or reduces the size of one or both of them, or increases both, belongs to those features which one alters least when disguising one's handwriting. But, again, there are not only these six probabilities but thousands of them, and we mark the individual kind of dealing with the upper and lower projections the best in the letter f, which contains both of them. When examining the way in which the letter f has been written in the pediscript we mark the following peculiarities; the upstroke and the loop, which are prescribed by the school copy, are completely omitted, the upper projection is much smaller than the lower projection, begins with a stronger emphasis of pressure, which decreases towards the bottom; there is the normal loop to the right, and a horizontal loop on the writing line in the form of a knot. All these peculiarities one comes across in a very distinct manner also in the mouth script.

(c) It will not have escaped the reader's notice that in making comparisons of the two handwritings of Nelson, to take an example, stress is laid on the details of the t-bar crossing the t-stem, and he may enquire whether in all cases the details of handwriting are really to be regarded as absolutely fixed. This question would be prompted by the experience that every one of us is liable to apparent changes in his script. The objection is valid but can be answered: graphology is concerned with establishing the constant features in any given person's script provided that the conditions of writing are constant. Where the conditions vary, the requisite adjustments have to be sought and fixed, and allowance made for the variations in drawing conclusions.

One of the factors which has to be determined at the outset is the speed at which the script was written. While it is not possible to make exact allowance for the differences of speed nor indeed to estimate the speed precisely so much may be learned from an examination of speed symptoms that they merit a special demonstration.

For the determination of the degree of speed I have drawn up tables which contain 22 indications, 11 symptoms for speed and 11 for slowness. These tables are the result of experiments which have been carried through partly in Germany, partly in France and in the United States, and to a certain extent by myself. Their correctness can be checked by anybody who will write down a text of say 10 or 15 lines as quickly as he can, and then copy this text on another sheet of paper as slowly as he is able to do without falling back into his old habit of quick writing.

When he has copied this text as carefully as a child does in school and then puts the two sheets side by side, he will find most of the speed symptoms in his quickly written sheet and most indications of slow writing on the other sheet.

All these 22 symptoms are based on the same three laws which rule the movements of the writing hand.

1. We write from left to right. The quick writer hurries to arrive as rapidly as possible at the end of the line on which he is actually engaged. The writer may do so because of his energy, or because of his impatience or his hastiness or his superficiality or because of the strength of the inner impulse which commands all his actions, or for many other reasons, but in any of these cases as soon as he writes quickly his movements are always hurried to the right.

2. Speed, hastiness, strong inner impulse always cause an exaggeration of our movements beyond the necessity of the purpose; we overstep the mark.

3. Because of inertia we are not able to stop our movements abruptly but remain in the actual movement for an infinitesimal space of time. The only movement which is stopped the very moment when our pen touches the paper is the vertical movement by which we make a dot because the hard surface on which we usually write stops this movement. When, as we usually do, we make our dots not with a vertical movement but from the side, our pen glides on the paper, so that we write an accent instead of a dot.

TABLE OF SPEED INDICATIONS.

Indications of Quick Writing.

PLUS.

1. Fluent, current strokes, unbroken and never trembling.

2. i-dots ahead of the i-stem, not really as dots but in the form of accents, and placed higher than they should be; or linked up with the next letter.

3. Prolonged and thinner t-bars, or t-bars which are not crossing the t-stem but placed to the right of it, or t-bars linked up with the next character or even with the next word.

4. Loops of letter which should lie on the left of the downstroke

are written on the right of it, i.e. a g is written as a q.

5. The direction of the line in which the text is written rises.

6. The left-hand margin increases towards the bottom of the page.