9G PLINY'S NATURAL HISTORY. [Book XI. 



CHAP. 114. — SIGNS OF VITALITY AND OF THE MORAL 

 DISPOSITION OF MAN, FROM THE LIMBS. 



I am greatly surprised that Aristotle has not only believed, 

 but has even committed it to writing, that there are in the 

 human body certain prognostics of the duration of life. Al- 

 though I am quite convinced of the utter futility of these re- 

 marks, and am of opinion that they ought not to be published 

 without hesitation, for fear lest each person might be anxiously 

 looking out for these prognostics in his own person, I shall still 

 make some slight mention of the subject, seeing that so learned 

 a man as Aristotle did not treat it with contempt. He has set 

 down the following as indications of a short life — few teeth, 

 very long fingers, a leaden colour, and numerous broken lines 

 in the palm of the hand. On the other hand, he looks upon the 

 following as prognostics of a long life — stooping in the shoul- 

 ders, one or two long unbroken lines in the hand, a greater num- 

 ber than two-and-thirty teeth, and large ears . He does not, I 

 imagine, require that all these symptoms should unite in one 

 person, but looks upon them as individually significant : in my 

 opinion, however, they are utterly frivolous, all of them, al- 

 though they obtain currency among the vulgar. Our own writer, 

 Trogus, has in a similar manner set down the physiognomy as 

 indicative of the moral disposition ; one of the very gravest of 

 the Eoman authors, whose own 61 words I will here subjoin : — 



" Where the forehead is broad, it is significant of a dull and 

 sluggish understanding beneath ; and where it is small, it in- 

 dicates an unsteady disposition. A rounded forehead denotes 

 an irascible temper, it seeming as though the swelling anger 

 had left its traces there. Where the eye-brows are extended 

 in one straight line, they denote effeminacy in the owner, and 

 when they are bent downwards towards the nose, an austere 

 disposition. On the other hand, when the eye-brows are bent 

 towards the temples, they are indicative of a sarcastic dispo- 

 sition ; but when they lie very low, they denote malice and 

 envy. Long eyes are significant of a spiteful, malicious nature ; 

 and where the corners of the eyes next the nose are fleshy, it 

 is a sign also of a wicked disposition. If the white of the eye 

 is large, it bears tokens of impudence, while those who are 

 incessantly closing the eyelids are inconstant. Largeness of 



61 But thev are borrowed from Aristotle, Hist. Anira. B. i. c. 9. 



