5 



palms, and that these may be even transmitted to om- descendants. 

 This is what I imderstand by chirognomy, or the legitimate 

 deductions from scientific data as distinct from chiromancy, which 

 professes to imravel the present and reveal the future. That the 

 science of chirognomy (or the laws legitimately deducible from the 

 structure of the hand) should have become degraded by association 

 with superstition and imposture, is only a fate which it has shared 

 with astronomy, chemistry, and even medicine. The hand is the 

 great exponent of the universal sense of touch. All our senses 

 may be considered as modifications of the sense of touch. Thus 

 the rays of light touch the sensitive retina of the eye, the waves of 

 sound touch and thereby excite the nerves of hearing, the 

 particles emanating from odorous substances touch and impress the 

 nerves of smell and taste, and these all important nerves of touch 

 are more highly developed' and more sensitive in the hand than in 

 almost any other part of the body. It would then indeed be 

 strange if so important an organ as the hand were not more or less 

 modified by the mental characteristics of the individual. This 

 truth was well known to the ancient Greek sculptors, as one may 

 perceive by the care with which they accord the characteristic 

 hand to each individual statue. Practically we may consider the 

 hand as divided into the palm and fingers. The palm may be 

 looked on, roughly, as the animal, the fingers are the intellectual 

 part of the hand. The more the palm predominates over the 

 fingers, the more animal will be the nature. This is well shown 

 in the diagram of the hand of a gorilla. Who has not noticed the 

 widely different feel of different palms, and the diversity of 

 impressions conveyed to us by the touch of various hands. There 

 are some whose touch immediately suggests confidence — we feel 

 we can trust the owner There are again others from whose 

 contact we invohmtarily shrink, and feel inclined to wipe our own 

 hands. The warm, soft, elastic, satiny palm, is the invariable 

 index of youth, health, and sensibility, while the hard, harsh, 

 hollow palm is no less certain evidence of the reverse. There are 

 great differences of palms ; they may be hard or soft, large or 

 small, flexible or inflexible, moist or dry, hollow or flat, smooth and 

 silky, or rough and harsh. According to Mr. Beamish, a " thick 

 hard palm is indicative of the animal instincts ; if thick and supple, 

 of emotion and sensibihty. If proportioned to the fingers, but hard 

 and non-elastic it is the index of laborious stolidity ; if hard but 

 elastic, of laborious activity ; if soft, of indolence and tranquil enjoy- 

 ment ; if flexible, an appreciation of pleasure derived from the 

 senses ; if elastic, of activity of the mental faculties ; if hollow and 

 firm, of mental vigour." " The hard hand may experience a strong 

 feeling of attachment, but exhibit little tenderness, while the soft 



