It is reasonable to assume that it is this intimate connection with the vital organs of the body which enables it to foretell the length of life from natural causes.
If the student will bear this in mind it will make clear and plain to him many difficulties in connection with predictions as to health and disease, and he will follow more easily the following explanations.
The first rules to master are, that to be normal the Line of Life should be long, clearly marked, and without any irregularities or breaks of any kind. Such a formation would indicate length of life, vitality, freedom from illness, and strength of constitution (1-1, [Plate VIII].).
Bearing the first observation in mind it will be noticed that as the Line of Life represents the stomach and the vital organs, when well marked the stomach and digestion must necessarily be in a good condition.
When made up of little pieces or linked like a chain, it is a certain sign of poor health, weak stomach and lack of vitality.
At this point I must ask the most careful attention to the following rules—which no other book on the subject contains, and which I have not published in any of my other writings, viz.: as the Line of Life seems in every sense to be the representative on the hand of the body or trunk of the man—so the position of these breaks, marks, links, or islands denotes the portion of the body most affected.
Before we go further I must also impress on the student to grasp the fact that every line or sign on the hand plays a dual rôle. By one of their rôles these lines indicate the disease the person is most liable to for the entire run of the life, and in another rôle these lines indicate the date when the illness will reach its greatest gravity.
To explain carefully this strange phenomenon of nature, I have divided this line into sections (see [Plate VIII].), and although I am not writing on astrology in these pages, yet all believers in that science may be interested to find how wonderfully these twin sciences agree when the comparison is pointed out by an impartial observer such as I claim to be.