As the student of anatomy can build up the entire system from the examination of a single bone, so may a person by a careful study of an important member of the body such as the hand, apart from anything superstitious or even mystical, build up the entire action of the system and trace every effect back to its cause.
To-day the science of the present is coming to the rescue of the so-called superstition of the past. All over the world scientists are little by little sweeping aside prejudice and beginning to study occult questions. Perhaps the "whys and wherefores" of such things may one of these days be as easily explained as are those wireless waves of electricity that carry messages from land to land.
CHAPTER II
THE LINE OF HEAD OR THE INDICATIONS OF THE MENTALITY
The object of the following chapters is to give clear and unmistakable instruction on the lines and markings of the hands, both from the student's standpoint and from that of the general reader. This is not usually the course adopted in books printed on this subject which have to appeal to a general public.
During my twenty-five years' professional experience in England, America, and other countries, I have carefully noted down the questions that are not answered in books published on this subject. I have also recorded what are the difficulties that arise in the minds of those students who meet this, that, or the other mark or line and search in vain for some explanation as to its meanings. I may add that there is not a single point on which I give information that has not been proved by me from probably thousands of cases that have come before me during my own professional experience.
As regards illustrations, I have endeavoured to make these of the simplest and clearest kind possible. I have every confidence that if they are carefully studied, no student can fail to grasp this subject in a masterful manner, and that whoever acts upon the advice I give in these pages, cannot fail to become successful as an interpreter of this study.
In all my work I regard the Line of Head (page [11]) or the Line of Mentality as the most important sign that can be found in the hand.
A Line of Head is like the needle in the compass, without a true knowledge of which it is impossible to grasp the "direction of the subject." I have seen more mistakes caused by a lack of grasp of this point than by anything else.