LONDON:
CHAPMAN AND HALL, 186 STRAND.
M.DCCC.XLVIII.
“Les hommes ne peuvent en quelque genre que ce soit arriver à quelque chose de raisonnable, qu’après avoir en ce même genre, épuisé toutes les sottises imaginables.”—Fontenelle.
“Si la nature, au lieu de mains et de doigts flexibles, eut terminé nos poignets par un pied de cheval; qui doute que les hommes, sans arts, sans habitations, sans défense contre les animaux, tout occupés du soin de pourvoir à leur nourriture et d’éviter les bêtes féroces, ne fussent encore errans dans les forêts comme des troupeaux fugitifs?”—Helvetius, Sur l’Esprit.
“Manus sunt artium organa; sicut lyra musici, et forceps fabri.”—Galen.
LONDON:
George Barclay, Castle Street, Leicester Square.
PREFACE.
Since the time of John Indagine, who published his “Art of Chiromancy” in 1563, but little progress has been made in the study of the hand as an indication of the physical and mental peculiarities of the individual. In our time, by the publication of the classical work of Sir C. Bell “On the Hand,” public attention has been once more directed to the form, structure, and uses of this important organ.
The varieties in the structure and conformation of the human hand which are met with in different individuals have recently been investigated with much success, both in France and Germany.
It is to D’Arpentigny, a translation of whose work[1] is now in course of publication in the “Medical Times,” that we are indebted for much of the information we possess as to the mutual relation existing between particular mental tendencies and certain definite forms of hand. By Professor Carus, of Dresden,[2] the views of D’Arpentigny have been in part verified, and at the same time considerably extended. He has corrected much that was erroneous, and endeavoured to establish a science of Chirology, founded upon the anatomy and physiology of the hand.
I have availed myself freely of the materials collected by D’Arpentigny and Carus, and have modified, corrected, or omitted their theories and statements when not in accordance with my own experience. Much new matter has been added, and the whole arranged in a form which it is hoped may tend somewhat to contribute either to the amusement or instruction of the Reader.