GRAPHOLOGY. – From γραφή (writing) and λόγος (discourse), it has as its object of study the investigation of any possible relationships that may exist between an individual’s handwriting and his nervous, psychic, and moral characteristics; according to some authors (early attempts by J. Chr. Grohmann and modern studies by G. Moretti), even the physical traits of bodily constitution; hence the possibility of knowing the entire personality through graphological expertise.
In the evolution of the theories and practical application of graphology, different informative concepts have succeeded one another, both with regard to the preferential emphasis to be given to this or that element of the graphic complex, and to their corresponding evaluative value, and also with regard to the power of detection of innate traits alone or also of acquired ones in the individual’s nature (v. CARATTERE E CARATTERIOLOGIA; INDOL).
Graphological examination takes into consideration the numerous elements of writing, from the elementary graphic signs in their characteristics of shape, slant, intensity of stroke, greater or lesser joining or spacing between letters and words; to the particularities of alignment and direction of the line, simplicity or harmony or superfluity of the design. Thus, graphologists arrive at assigning a corresponding somatic and psychological value to individual signs, or rather, more modernly, to the graphic complexes formed by their association or combination, complexes indicative of affective-active dispositions, intellectual aptitudes, and even the morphological habitus of the subject under examination. One of the most authoritative modern exponents of graphology, the Recanatese P. Girolamo Maria Moretti, of the Order of Conventual Friars Minor, in his treatise lists, describes, and critically studies the diagnostic value of seventy graphic signs, distinguished into substantial, modified, and accidental, each classified according to its own quantitative value through a personal decimal classification system. The individual tendencies and their different decimal values in combination would lead to the determination of the resulting psychology or personal psychographic profile.
For a more detailed account of the history, rules, and practical application of graphology, reference should be made to the works cited in the bibliography, particularly the more modern ones, developed in the form of treatises with a scientific approach.
As for a judgment on the scientific
GRAPHOLOGY – Handwriting of Mahatma Gandhi. The following should be noted: the width of individual letters (depth of intelligence), that between letters (generosity) and between words (reasoning, criticism); the thickening of the first type, i.e., being written with strong and continuous pressure (command, imperiousness), angularity (resentment, touchiness), sinuosity, i.e., the varying slant of the axis of individual letters (profound sensitivity); moreover, maintaining the line (firmness of purpose), being profuse with flourishes and curls (expansiveness), fluid and flowing (spontaneity).
As for the ethical aspect of graphology and the consequent moral judgment of it, it should be noted that without doubt it is possible, on the basis of scientific physiopsychological arguments, to maintain the existence of well-defined relationships between the characteristics of personality, understood in the broadest and most comprehensive sense, in the manner of modern constitutionalist schools, and the various types of external language (v.) (mimic, phonetic, graphic). Everyday observation and, in particular, the study of the individual under different conditions of physical or mental health or illness, shows corresponding modifications in gesture, speech, and writing; the anatomical-physiological investigation of the nervous system highlights the presence of well-defined language centers—graphic, mimic-phasic—connected to one another in structural, correlative, and collaborative relationships (v. LOCALIZZAZIONI CEREBRALI; NERVOSO, SISTEMA (DELL'UOMO)). Just as it cannot be doubted that, clearly under conditions of spontaneity, gesture and speech are personal to the individual and manifestations of his psycho-physical nature, so too must this be considered equally certain for writing. The practical crux of the matter remains the problem of the indicative value of individual signs and the extent and quality of the diagnoses derived from graphic signs. Therefore, while professing faith in the scientific value of graphology, it is held that, as has already occurred in the course of its historical development, the future will have to make short work of much material currently considered valid and will restore to more modest but firmer boundaries some practical conclusions that, upon truly critical examination, appear to be artificial preconceived constructions and which, even if in the hands of particularly skilled practitioners they may coincide with reality, seem to derive more from a particular intuition of clairvoyance (v.) than from the application of canons derived by scientific method.
Valuable scientists were drawn by the serious characteristics and the possibility of framing the study of graphology with a scientific method and contributed their work to it; it will suffice here to recall A. Binet, Ch. Richet, C. Lombroso, E. Morselli.
From the aforementioned scientific foundations of graphology derives the moral judgment that can be made of II. Unless it wishes, for example, like chiromancy (v.), to transmute into the prediction of the individual’s future free behavior, surpassing the reasonable generic predictions of conduct that can be inferred from circumstances and his psycho-somatic tendencies, it cannot in any way be classified among the so-called divinatory arts and occult sciences condemned by Sixtus V in the bull Coeli et terra of 5 Jan. 1585 (Bullarium Romanum, VIII, Turin 1863, pp. 646-50) and in other ecclesiastical documents relating to divination and magic (v.) in general. For this reason, its theoretical study and practical application are morally licit, while at the same time hoping that it is not abandoned into the hands of charlatans and empirics, but has as its sole practitioners individuals of adequate competence in the biological, psychological, constitutional, and medical sciences.