“The beauty of a youthful hand,” says Winckelmann “consists in a
moderate degree of plumpness, and a scarcely observable depression,
resembling a soft shadow, over the articulations of the fingers, where,
if the hand is plump, there is a dimple. The fingers taper gently
towards their extremities, like finely-shaped columns; and, in art, the
articulations are not expressed. The fore part of the terminating joint
is not bent over, nor are the nails very long, though both are common in
the works of modern sculptors.”
Balzac pointed out that “men of superior intellect almost always have
beautiful hands, the perfection of which is the distinctive indication
of a high destination.... The hand is the despair of sculptors and
painters when they wish to express the changing labyrinth of its
mysterious lineaments.”
A fine hand is, indeed, a sign of superior intelligence in a much more
comprehensive sense than that which Balzac had in mind. The difference
between the simian and human faces is hardly greater than the progress
from an ape’s hand to a man’s in beauty of outline, smoothness of
surface, grace of movement, and varied utility. The ape’s hand is hairy
on the upper surface, hard and callous on the lower. Except in climbing,
its movements are clumsy. The fingers have adapted themselves to the
need of climbing, and have become permanently bent in front, so that
when the animal goes on all fours it cannot walk on the palm, but only
on the bent knuckles.
A step higher we have the negro’s hands, in which the fingers are less
independent and nimble, and the palmar fat-cushions less developed and
sensitive, than in our hands. These fat-cushions serve to protect the
blood-vessels as well as the delicate nerves, which make the hand the
principal organ of touch. The muscles of the hand are more easily and
instantaneously obedient to the will than those of any other part of the
body, except those of the mouth and eyes; and hence it is that the hands
are almost as good an index of a man’s character, habits, and profession
as his face, and have been aptly called his “second face.”
Division of labour is the index of progress in the evolution of organs.
To the fact that his feet have become exclusively adapted to locomotion,
leaving the hands free to serve as tools, man chiefly owes his
superiority to other animals. For what would superior intellect avail
him without the implements needed to carry out its schemes? Feeling,
grasping, handling, writing, sewing, playing an instrument, squeezing,
caressing,—these are a few of the innumerable functions of the human
hand; while the ape’s is good for little but climbing. The finger
language of deaf mutes shows to what subtle intellectual uses the hands
can be put; and as for emotional expression, are there any facial
muscles which can indicate finer shades of feeling than the infinitely
varied touch with which a pianist or violinist gives utterance to every
mood and phase of human passion?
No wonder that, just as the face has had its physiognomists and
phrenologists, so the hand its chiromancers, who pretended, by looking
at its lines, not only to read character, but even to foretell one’s
fate. Books on this subject are indeed still published, which shows that
the race of fools is in no immediate danger of extinction. Wrinkles in
the face do bear some relation to character and experience; but surely
no one needs to be told that the palmar lines are purely
accidental—caused by the manner in which the skin is folded when we
close the hand.