This is what astronomers hitherto have not observed with sufficient accuracy. The signator's business is not always to look at the manners and actions, but rather at other bodily signs which are fixed, and cannot by any artifice be counterfeited or changed. For if red hair, motion of the forehead and eyebrows, frequent agitation of the mouth, strong and deliberate step, and light spirits, indicate of necessity a generous, active man, or soldier, such as any one could easily shew himself by his own activity, and so stand better when put to the proof, and command higher pay, so, likewise, must judgment be passed on other manners which betoken wisdom, folly, truth, falsehood, fortune, victory, and the rest.
Concerning the Astral Signs or Chiromancy.[1]
Concerning the signs of chiromancy it should be held that they arise from the higher stars of the seven planets, and all of them ought to be learnt and judged from the seven planets. Now, Chiromancy is a science which not only inspects the hands of men, and from their lines and wrinkles makes its judgment, but, moreover, it also considers all herbs, woods, flints, earths, and rivers—in a word, whatever has lines, veins, and wrinkles. But neither is this science free from its errors, which astronomers have alleged against it. For they have assigned the fingers of both hands to the planets and the principal stars, when, notwithstanding, there are on one hand only five fingers but on both hands ten, while the planets are only seven in number. How can these things be made to agree? Now, if there were seven fingers on each hand, then it might be possible to assign a finger to each of the planets. It happens, indeed, very often that a man only has seven fingers on his two hands, the others being lost by some accident. But still the stumps exist, and, moreover, the persons were not born in this way, so this matter has no relevance here. Besides, if it did so happen that a man was born with seven fingers either on one hand or on both, that would be a monstrous birth, not according to Nature, and therefore not to be assigned to the stars. So here, again, no comparison can be instituted. It would have been better, then, that the planets should cast lots and see which two ought to retire. This, however, could not be done, because the planets had neither dice nor lots up in the firmament; so one wonders who took it upon him to allot the planets by name, giving the thumb to Venus, the index finger to Jupiter, the middle
- ↑ It is a great error to suppose that chiromancy is concerned only with the hands, for it includes the significance of the lines upon the entire body. Nor is it confined to the body of man, for it deals also with the trunks of trees, and with the tracery upon the leaves of trees. Every peculiarity of line, whether in leaves or in human hands, has its special meaning. No man deserves to be called a doctor who is ignorant of chiromancy, because, for example, the presence upon the hand of those lines which are called lineæ architectæ indicate that the person will be likely to die of the colic; but then there are certain leaves which possess corresponding lines, and these leaves are the cure of colic. So also the linea ancora is the line of apoplexy, and this line is found in the acorus (i.e., the sweet flag), which is a medicine of apoplexy. . . . Thus by the same sign Nature indicates the existence of the disease and its remedy. But the physician who is ignorant of the sign is ignorant of everything. But as physiognomy is both outward and inward, so there is an internal and external chiromancy, and that which is without is an evidence of that which is within.—Duo Alii Libri de Podagricis Morbis, Lib. I. I have frequently indicated that chiromancy is the inventress of arts, if it be cabalistically treated.—De Peste. Lib. II., Pref.
