Individual differences in the formation of the human hand are so great
that they are used for purposes of identification. Specifically, it is
the tips of the fingers which are made to imprint their distinctive
marks. It was noticed many centuries ago, however, that the shape
of the hand and the form of the folds which run across it are not
exactly the same in people of the same race or even in close relatives.
Neither are all faces or all heads or all bodies identical, of course.
Physiognomy, the study of character from the face, is undoubtedly of
very ancient origin, although we sometimes think of Johannes Kaspar
Lavater, Goethe’s friend, as its originator. Phrenology, the attempt
to study the mind from the formation of the skull, arose or at least
became important in the system worked out by Gall not much more than a
century ago.
Before there was much interest in the question of the origin of
individuality and the meaning of variation, our primitive ancestors
sought to find indications of future events. We need not consider at
length the methods which they employed. They are outlined in my Little
Blue Books dealing with fortune telling and astrology. Before there
could be any astrology, however, a certain amount of astronomical
knowledge was necessary. Simpler methods of prognostication were first
used. The Chaldean priests who gazed at the stars were surely several
degrees above the primitive.
Our word palmistry (probably from the Middle English and the Old
French words _paume_ and _maistrie_, meaning therefore mastery or
skill with regard to the palm of the hand) has really now two separate
connotations. It includes chirognomy, or the reading of character from
the hand, which is allied with phrenology and physiognomy and sometimes
combined with them by the modern charlatans who call themselves
“mentologists” or “characterologists.” It also embraces chiromancy or
the foretelling of individual fortunes from the appearance of the hand.
We associate chiromancy chiefly with the gypsies, who have probably
brought this “art” with them from India. It is still in great favor in
India, as also in Egypt and Syria. Many of the great men of classical
Greece believed in the possibility of reading future events in the
lines of the hand. In their country, the chiromantic tradition had
existed at least from Homeric times. We are told that palmistry,
chiefly for the purpose of divination, is some five thousand years old
in China. The Chinese have also been interested in podoscopy, the study
of the foot and especially the compressed foot of the female, for the
same purpose.
For the medieval physiologists, palmistry was bound up with astrology
and all of the magical arts. “He sealeth up the hand of every man:
that all men may know his work” (Job: 37: 7), is one of the Biblical
texts which were supposed to justify chiromancy. Since both the hands
of the individual and the stars which had been dominant at the moment
of his conception were supposed to show his fate, parts of the hand
were given astrological names and held to be ruled by the various
planets.
The softness or hardness, dryness or moistness of the palm was
considered to indicate which of the four humors--blood, phlegm, choler
and melancholy--was most prevalent in the body, and therefore to show
which of the four temperaments the subject possessed. The general shape
of the hand, the flexion-folds of skin (the lines), and the muscular
projections or mounts were taken to show something about character and
a great deal about the future.
The material of palmistry belongs chiefly to very old traditions, and
some of it dates from the earliest Indian culture of which we have
any record. The arrangement found in modern books and many of the
teachings, however, originated with two men, Hartlieb in the fifteenth
century and d’Arpentigny in the middle of the nineteenth.
We have no good reason to suppose that the formation of the hand
or of any other part of the human body can tell us anything about
character. This sort of notion is common enough in the beginnings of
science. A few simple rules are supposed to unlock all mysteries.
In the Christian writers, the theory is that God made a regular and
very orderly world. Moreover, authority was taken as the guide. If
Aristotle approved palmistry; if Albertus Magnus, who claimed to make
careful investigations of his own, agreed with the master; if other
medieval philosophers and theologians also believed in the prognostic
significance of the lines and the mounts; it was, then, a very bold
skeptic who dared to suppose that these signs are meaningless or of no
known meaning. But the chief opposition to palmistry, as to the other
pseudo-sciences, came from the obscurantists, the men who thought that
Jehovah is annoyed to find men seeking to solve his mysteries.
People want to know what is going to happen in the future. Is the
poor priest to become a bishop? Is the poet to be recognized by his
contemporaries, or will monuments be erected to his memory? Will the
merchant’s cargoes fall into the hands of pirates? Such questions
arise constantly, but intelligent men are now resigned to finding them
unanswerable, or capable of receiving an answer after a lapse of time.
Yet men have a way of supposing that whatever they eagerly desire
actually exists. It is thus that we create heaven and the freedom of
the soul and the whole oracular system.
The scientists, assuming that the natural relationships of the future
will operate as they do at present and as they appear always to have
operated in the past, engage in something which resembles fortune
telling. They assure us that a certain comet will appear at a definite
time, for instance, or that the earth will be able to support life
after a stated period. If their calculations are correct, that
is, based upon an appreciation of all the factors involved, their
prophecies are trustworthy. But science is in a constant state of
revision, as phenomena are better understood.
In the present state of knowledge, it would be rash to maintain that
the form and the markings of the hand will never be useful in the
indication of character. Individual physical peculiarities, which must
be reflected in the mental and the moral man, may some day be analyzed
with the aid of the palm of the hand. Fingers of a particular shape
frequently are helpful in playing the piano or the violin or in various
arts and crafts. It is possible for the observer who has acquired
a little skill to recognize the cigarette-smoker, the chemist, the
day-laborer, the housewife, the lady of leisure, and the man who plays
baseball (especially at the catching position) a great deal, simply by
examining the hand. Palmistry cannot go far beyond this, however, and
enjoy the respect of the intelligently educated, until we have much
more information than we now possess. The traditional chiromancy and
the chirognomy which is largely the work of modern writers are both
systems of superstition. They are outlined here as curiosities, not as
useful sciences or arts.