Note: | Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See https://archive.org/details/handphrenologica00lond |
Elementary Hand.
BEING
A GLIMPSE AT THE RELATION OF THE MIND
WITH THE ORGANISATION OF
THE BODY.
LONDON:
CHAPMAN AND HALL, 186 STRAND.
M.DCCC.XLVIII.
“Les hommes ne peuvent en quelque genre que ce soitarriver à quelque chose de raisonnable, qu’après avoir ence même genre, épuisé toutes les sottises imaginables.”—Fontenelle.
“Si la nature, au lieu de mains et de doigts flexibles, eutterminé nos poignets par un pied de cheval; qui doute queles hommes, sans arts, sans habitations, sans défense contreles animaux, tout occupés du soin de pourvoir à leur nourritureet d’éviter les bêtes féroces, ne fussent encore erransdans les forêts comme des troupeaux fugitifs?”—Helvetius,Sur l’Esprit.
“Manus sunt artium organa; sicut lyra musici, et forcepsfabri.”—Galen.
LONDON:
George Barclay, Castle Street, Leicester Square.
Since the time of John Indagine, whopublished his “Art of Chiromancy” in 1563,but little progress has been made in the studyof the hand as an indication of the physicaland mental peculiarities of the individual. Inour time, by the publication of the classicalwork of Sir C. Bell “On the Hand,” publicattention has been once more directed to theform, structure, and uses of this importantorgan.
The varieties in the structure and conformationof the human hand which are met withivin different individuals have recently been investigatedwith much success, both in Franceand Germany.
It is to D’Arpentigny, a translation of whosework1 is now in course of publication in the“Medical Times,” that we are indebted formuch of the information we possess as to themutual relation existing between particularmental tendencies and certain definite forms ofhand. By Professor Carus, of Dresden,2 theviews of D’Arpentigny have been in partverified, and at the same time considerablyextended. He has corrected much that waserroneous, and endeavoured to esta