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2000 years ago Nero stated that he could not trust anyone who's handwriting he thought to be treacherous. In 120 A.D. Suetonius Tranquillas, a Roman historian who was part of the 12 Ceasars, said of the Emperor Augustus of Rome, 'He does not seperate his words-I do not trust him.' It seems that since graphic writing began, the scientific study of graphology has been used to increase awareness of one's personality. Graphology did not appear overnight. It was a cumulative and progressive process which required time, dedication and passion. Just as handwriting analysis is done by adding several factors together into a complete whole, many individuals contributed their part in increasing the knowledge of Graphology to make it become the field it is now. 1619 1622 Alderius Prosper from Bologna, recorded the first book on graphology called Ideagraphia. Camillo Baldi, a professor of medicine, recorded a treatise in handwriting analysis. His work, written in Greek, is titled How to Know the Habits and the Character of a Person From His Letters. Little attention was brought from this book, although there were a few entertainers who traveled from castle to castle giving advice. In the next few hundred years, very little happened in the research of handwriting analysis. During the 18th century, things started to pick up and the connection between writing and character began to be taken more seriously by devoted followers, especially in France. A group of French churchmen named Archbishop Soudinet of Amiens, Cardinal Reginier, and Abbe Flandrin (1806-81) researched into the relationship between handwriting and character by using single letter forms as their central source of data. Jean Hippolyte Michon of Paris, France, was a student of Abbe Flandrin. He gave the science its name "graphology" and created the Graphical Society in Paris, which was active until World War two. By using his observational skills, he collected and analyzed thousands of samples and recorded the writing signs that were shared by people with similar characteristics. He designed a system of signs and rules, each with a fixed meaning based on his observations. Michon believed that a signs' absence described the opposite quality. We now know that this is not valid, but his system worked well. After many years this comprehensive work was published, and it took the country by storm and was popularly recieved. Although he did not explain why people had different types of styles or the psychological implications of handwriting, his work created a major contribution to later works of his student, Jules Crepienx. As a student of Michon, Jean Crepienx-Jamin recognized that the lack of a sign does not neccesarily denote its opposite quality and rarely does. He also realized that handwriting must be analyzed as a whole and not as so many different and simple characteristics. We are all complex creatures with many characteristics that we are a sum total of. When those characteristics are in conflict with each other, they must be compared one versus the other in order to arrive at an accurate analysis of the handwriting. Crepienx-Jamin went to Alfred Binet, a French doctor
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