HAND, INDEX OF HABIT OF BODY AND TEMPERAMENT.
The general habit of body, and the kind of temperament, we determine from certain general signs deduced from the hand. We observe the structure of the skin—whether it be fine or coarse in its texture, whether it be hard and unyielding, or soft and elastic. We note the quantity of fat and of cellular tissue; and this enables us to form a judgment respecting the degree of embonpoint, and we have already abundantly proved that a man of a soft, lax habit, with an abundance of cellular and fatty tissues, differs in mental tendency and disposition from one of firm, tense fibre, in whom the bones, muscles, and articulations, are strong and prominent. Thus, a soft, thick hand, loaded with fat, denotes little energy of character, and a soft, yielding, inactive disposition; while, on the contrary, a thin, firm, bony, or muscular hand indicates a rough, active, energetic nature. With respect to the texture of the skin—a hand possessing a delicate and highly-sensitive skin is accompanied by a similar structure of the tegumentary envelope of the entire body, and is always associated with an excitable organisation, with a highly sensitive, mobile disposition. A coarse, dry texture of the skin denotes a preponderance of muscular force over sensibility, and a character more remarkable for solidity and resolution than for imagination or vivacity of conception. The hand partakes of the nature of the whole body; when the latter is gracefully and symmetrically formed, with its several parts in nice adaptation and co-ordination, the former shares its perfection and is constructed after the same general plan; and we accordingly find that a powerful, athletic individual is furnished with a large hard hand, with its joints or articulations strong and prominent, and a delicate, sensitive person, with a small, narrow hand, with its joints small and but slightly prominent.