Significance of the Fingers

1874

Each finger, and the mount at the base of it, is named from a planet. In the normal hand the second finger is the longest, the third the next longest, the first nearly as long as the third, and much longer than the fourth or little finger.

Jupiter is the first finger. If it be long and not ill-shapen, and if the mount at its base be well developed, it indicates a noble and lofty character, and a religious-minded person. If disproportionately long, it will mean different things according to the type of hand in which it may be found, or according to the type of that particular finger; in the first type, an over-long first finger would denote an inclination to the fantastic or the exaggerated in religious matters; or it might, perhaps, mean religious madness; or, if other signs in the hand favored this view, it could be taken to denote pride. Pride is a form of worship — the culture of self. In the second type of hand, the excessive development of Jupiter might mean ambition, or, if it were in a hand that was eminently unselfish, it would stand for a something puritanical in manners and morals — a too great severity. In the third type, a very long first finger would probably signify vanity.

The second finger is Saturn. If too prominent it announces melancholy, or misanthropy, or downright cruelty, according to the type of hand; but if the finger be within due proportion, this sadness may take the form of pity for others, or it may mean merely a becoming gravity.

The third finger is Apollo, and belongs to the arts. In a "pointed" hand Apollo will give poetry and music composition; in a "square" hand, painting, sculpture, (here art leaves the domain of the purely contemplative; it becomes partly active from the combination of manual skill with what is only imaginative;) and in a "spade-shaped" hand Apollo will give histrionic power, an aptitude for acting, or a love of theatrical amusements. On the stage art is joined in the closest manner to motion.

The fourth finger is Mercury. If well proportioned it promises a scientific turn of mind, resourcefulness and diplomacy — tact.

The thumb is Venus. Chirognomy and palmistry agree in almost all particulars about the thumb. In both systems it is treated as the most important part of the hand. The upper joint, that with the nail, stands for the will; the second division, the reasoning faculties; the base, the animal instincts. — St. Paul's Magazine.