who was extremely fond of the exact sciences,
and of mechanics in particular. Consequently,
lie was visited by numerous geometricians and
mechanicians. His lady (through the immutable
law of contrast) was passionately fond of the
arts, and received nobody but artists. From
which it resulted that Madame had her reception
days, and Monsieur his.

M. d'Arpentigny, neither mathematician nor
artist, and wearing the badge of neither clique,
indiscriminately attended the evening parties
given both by the husband and the wife. He
had a handsome hand, and made the most of it,
complacently indulging in silent comparisons
which always turned to his own advantage.
This led him to remark that the arithmeticians
and engineers had all knotty fingers, while
those of all the artists were smooth. The two
entire parties, without exception, seemed to
have adopted, as their badge, two different
kinds and forms of hand. He was struck by
the contrast, and on seeking further proof, met
with it. He imagined in people whose fingers
were smooth, the impressionability, the
spontaneity, the intuition, the momentary inspiration
which replaces calculation, the caprice, the
faculty of judging at a glance, whose consequence
is a taste for the arts. In persons with knotty
fingers, he found reflection, order, an aptitude
for figures and such sciences as mechanics,
agriculture, architecture, engineering, navigation
— for everything, in short, which requires
the exercise of the reasoning faculty. Convinced
on one point, he did not stop there, but went
on comparing, studying, interrogating. After
thirty years' experience, he established a system
based on facts, without troubling himself about
the causes of those facts.

M. Desbarrolles goes further. He has
fathomed the proof of chiromancy to lie in Magic,
and thereby in "The Three Worlds:" the
heavens, the earth, and the infernal regions. By the
material world, we are connected with the lower
world, with things infernal; by the intellectual
world, we hold on to the earth; by the divine
world, we are attached to the upper world, the
heavens.

Chiromancy, adds M. Desbarrolles, is
entirely based on the Kabbala. Now, the whole
of the Kabbala may be summed up in the
sentence, " The strongest magical power is THE
WILL." The first kabalistic precept is, " What
you always will to do, you will be able to do
one day or another." The profundity of which
saying becomes evident by putting it in another
form. " Is there any greater impediment to a
thing's being done than an unwillingness to do
it? Is a man ever likely to accomplish anything
which he has no will to accomplish?" The rule
applies even to animals. One man can lead a
horse to water, but can a hundred make him
drink, if he won't?

The hand is the summary of the man, his active
microcosm. The index, pointer, or first finger,
belongs to the planet Jupiter; the medium,
middle, or second finger, to Saturn; the annular,
ring-finger, or third, to Apollo or the Sun; and
the auricular, the ear-finger, or fourth, to
Mercury. At the base of each finger, just on the palm,
is, or should be, a little mountain, influenced
by its respective planet. The base or root
of the thumb is the mount of Venus, opposite
to which, and next the wrist, is the
mount of the Moon. Between that and the
little finger, and separated by two lines from
the mount of Mercury, is the mount of Mars.
The hand has thus seven mountains, influenced
by seven planets, reckoning the Sun and Moon
as such.

It will be objected that the planets have long
since exceeded seven in number, and that new
ones are now being discovered every day. But
if they have hitherto been so hard to discover,
it was because they are hardly visible, either on
account of their distance or their smallness, and
that their influence, consequently, can only be
secondary. Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn,
are still the most important planets. Uranus,
through his immense distance from the Sun,
loses his influence over us. Vesta, Juno,
Pallas, and the rest, are so minute that their
influence is the strength of flies compared with
that of elephants. All which logic may be
good; still, I do not see how it connects the
planet Venus with the thumb, or Mercury with
the little finger.

Keep silence, caviller, and hearken to the
seer. An overgrown mount of Jupiter produces
superstition, excessive pride, the love of
domination at any price, the desire to shine. The
absence of the mount causes sloth, egotism,
irreligion, want of dignity, vulgar tendencies.
Saturn is fatality. His mount in excess induces
taciturnity, melancholy, love of solitude, rigid
religion, the fear of future punishment, ascetism,
remorse, and frequently a propensity to suicide.
Its absence presages misfortune, or at best
insignificance.

Passing by the two remaining fingers, listen
we to the revelations of the thumb. The thumb
represents the creation. It unites in itself
generation, reason, and realisation or the will
(which in magic are one). The thumb, then, is
the life, the being, the entire man surrounded
by the influences with which he must mould his
good or his evil, according to the direction which
he gives to his will and his intelligence. " In
default of any other proof," said Newton, " the
thumb would convince me of the existence of a
God." The superior animal is in the hand; the
man is in the thumb. M. d'Arpentigny gives us
proofs in born idiots, who come into the world
without thumbs, or with impotent and withered
thumbs, and epileptic sufferers who, in their fits,
close their fingers over their thumbs. Moribund
persons, he says, do the same.

Magically, the thumb comprises the three
worlds with perfect distinctness. The first joint,
that which carries the nail, gives the measure of
the will, the invention, the initiative faculty. It
is the divine world of the kabbalists. The second
phalange is the token of logic; namely, of
perception, judgment, and reasoning power. It is
the world of abstraction. The third, which forms