FORM OF HANDS.
1.—The Elementary Hand. See [Plate I.]—Fingers thick, and without flexibility, palm large, thick, and hard, thumb rudimentary, and frequently bent somewhat backwards, skin coarse in its texture, nails short and thick. In countries where such hands abound, the people obey habit and instinct rather than reason. The sensations are dull and inactive, the imagination is without force, and the character apathetic; for the extremities of the nerves being deficient in sensibility, the impressions conveyed to the brain are wanting in intensity, and the ideas to which they give rise are consequently neither clear nor vivid. “Aux mains élémentaires, en Europe le labourage, le soin des étables et la longue suite des travaux grossiers auxquels suffisent les confuses lumières de l’instinct. A elles la guerre, en tant qu’il ne s’agit, que d’arroser machinalement de la sueur un sol étranger. Enfermées dans le monde matériel elles ne se rattachent guêre à l’ensemble politique, que par l’élément physique. Les convictions se ferment en elles dans une sphère inaccessible au raisonnement, et leurs vertus tiennent le plus souvent à des facultés négatives.”
Elementary hands abound in the north of Europe. The individuals characterised by them are always superstitious; witness the Lappes, the Finns, and the Icelanders. By misfortune they are overwhelmed. In India, where they do not naturally exist, they have been artificially produced in a particular caste—the Parias—by political and social institutions. They have been abundant among every people at the dawning of their civilisation; they raised the pyramids in Egypt and the Cyclopean structures in Italy, and are described as existing in a rude state of society in the literature of various nations: witness the Polyphemus of the Greeks, the Melibœus of the Latins, the Caliban of Shakspeare, and the Sancho Panza of Cervantes. This form of hand can unquestionably be produced by premature hard labour, but it is found among the upper classes likewise, where manual labour cannot be supposed to have given rise to it. Physiologically it must be looked upon as an arrest of developement, its main bulk, like the member of the lower animals and of the human fœtus, being made up of the solid palm. It must hence be regarded as a primitive form of the member, as a rudimentary, and consequently an imperfect organ.
Transitions from the elementary to other forms of hand are frequently met with. Thus, when the fingers become elongated and somewhat thinner, and the texture of the skin finer, the hand may be said to be intermediate between the elementary and sensitive type, while long, hard, bony fingers indicate an approach towards the motive type. And thus it is that intelligence is more readily to be attained by persons with elementary, than a fine sensibility by those furnished with a motive hand, or great energy in objective action by those provided with a sensitive.
2. The Sensitive Hand (see [Plate II.]) is rather below than above the average size, palm soft and narrow, fingers thin and delicate, with the extremity plump, rounded, and cushiony, thumb thin and small, skin fine and very vascular, nails narrow and semi-transparent. This type of hand may be looked upon as essentially feminine. It denotes a highly-sensitive frame, and a delicately-organised nervous system. The nervous ramifications distributed to the surface of the body being covered only by a thin layer of cuticle or scarf-skin, are easily excited by impressions from without, and as readily transmit their excitement to the central organs, thus occasioning a prompt and vivid flow of ideas.
The Sensitive Hand.
(a.) The Artistic Hand of D’Arpentigny is a variety of this type. It is characterised by a moderately-developed palm, long tapering fingers, very flexible, and a small thumb. It has for its object the worship of material beauty, is disposed to view things through a romantic medium, is fond of leisure, of liberty, and of change; is at once bold and timid, humble and vain, exalted and depressed, enthusiastic and desponding. The charms of a quiet, regulated, domestic life possess but little attraction for such persons, who, with much originality, have equal fickleness of character. “En France nos armées sont pleines de mains artistiques de tout genre; elles leur doivent le caractère de mobilité aventureuse, insouciante, pittoresque; cet élan fulgurant et prime sautier, qui les distinguent. Elles s’accommodent de tout et sont propre à tout. On les enlève par la parole.”
(b.) A gradual transition is afforded from this to the motive type by means of the spathulate hand, which partakes both of the motive and sensitive character.
The spathulate hand, when fully developed, is furnished with smooth fingers, with a rounded, cushiony termination, and a large thumb. It denotes a love of corporeal movement, and of active occupation—of horses, dogs, and field-sports; it prefers the useful to the agreeable, and is not content, like the elementary hand, with the merely necessary, but demands abundance. It is distinguished by an appearance of simplicity and frankness of character, and likewise by its chastity; so that Diana or Cyrus the Younger may be said to be its representatives. It is a native of the North, is more common in Scotland than in England, in England than in France, and in France than in Italy or Spain. Wherever it is the prevailing type, as in England and America, the political institutions are free. It is essentially Protestant. “Amoureuses de l’art, de la poésie, du roman, des mystères, les mains pointues veulent un dieu selon leur imagination; amoureuses des sciences et de la réalité, les mains en spatule veulent un dieu selon leur raison.” So that it may be truly said that the people of the north are physically Protestant, and those of the south Catholic. It must also be remarked, that before the revocation of the Edict of Nantes the Protestants of France were likewise its chief manufacturers; for the same spirit that led them to embrace Protestantism impelled them to the cultivation of mechanical and scientific pursuits. It prefers size and regularity to beauty, opulence to luxury, and that which excites astonishment to that which pleases. In private life its motto is, “Chacun pour soi.”
The Motive Hand.
The Motive Hand (see [Plate III.])—Above the mean size, fingers with prominent joints, of an average length, and strong, thick, and bony, with a square tip; palm of a mean size, hollow, and tolerably firm; thumb large, with the muscular root strongly developed. This form of hand cannot exist without a strong, massive developement of the bony and muscular system. It is essentially the hand of man, as the sensitive is that of woman. Hence, in the female sex, it indicates a masculine energy of character: witness the hardy peasants of Switzerland and the Tyrol. In both sexes it denotes a preponderance of the masculine or reasoning mind over the imaginative faculties. Hence it loves form and arrangement, possesses a strong instinctive feeling for right and authority, and a profound respect for established forms; prefers an aristocracy to a democracy, and the known to the unknown; takes a delight in organising, in classifying, in systematising, in subjecting thought to opinion, and man to his fellow-man. Devoid of originality, and with but little imagination, it moves only in the old beaten path, and its belief is limited to that which it is capable of comprehending.
Partaking of the character of the motive and psychical type, we have a mixed intermediate form, termed by D’Arpentigny “the philosophical hand.”
(a.) The Philosophical Hand is somewhat smaller than the motive; the fingers have large joints, and are somewhat tapering at their tip; the palm is large and elastic, the thumb also large, with its two phalanges nearly equal in length. Such was the hand of Locke, of Condillac, of Descartes, Malebranche, and Leibnitz. It denotes a love of absolute truth for its own sake, and of speculations respecting the nature of life and the origin of things. It adopts opinions only upon a careful investigation, and reason is its only recognised guide.
The Psychical Hand.
The Psychical Hand (see Plate [Plate IV.]) is at once the most beautiful and the most rare. Compared with the stature it is small and delicate; the fingers are thin, without articular prominences, and long and tapering; the palm is of average dimensions, the thumb well formed and but of moderate size. Persons with such a hand are led by ideality; soul is for them every thing; great interests alone move them; in religion and politics they are tolerant. In literature, Milton, Klopstock, and Göthe, are their representatives. Loving the ideal and the sublime, they oppose to the school of Voltaire and Hume that of Lamartine and Chateaubriand. Among the Greeks, Plato is their type.
D’Arpentigny says of these hands: “Elles attachent, elles ajoutent, aux œuvres du penseur, comme l’artiste à l’œuvre de l’artisan la beauté, l’idéalité; elles les dorent d’un rayon de soleil, elles les élèvent sur un piédestal, elles leur ouvrent le porte des cœurs; l’âme, oubliée et laissée en arrière par les mains philosophiques, est leur guide,—la vérité dans l’amour, et la sublimité leur but, et l’expansion leur moyen.”
This form of hand is met with among all classes of society, but is rarely the prevailing one among any people. In Asia, it is most common in India; and in Europe, in Germany.
Thus to the spathulate and motive hands appertain matter and reality, the useful and necessary arts, the action and theory of things, and the knowledge of facts; to the sensitive and psychical hands the boundless ideal world—the fine arts, sublime poetry, and abstract intellectual philosophy.