These same lines and monticuli are present in the hands and feet of the chimpanzee and other man-like apes, and were specially exhibited under my direction in the upper gallery of the Natural History Museum. But no palmist ever read the ape's hand, although, according to the great and authoritative treatises on palmistry, it would be perfectly easy to do so, since every variation in the lines and the monticules has been mechanically dealt with, and its supposed indications precisely determined by a formal set of rules. There are similar lines on that part of the foot in human infants and in the adult apes which corresponds to the palmar surface. But no palmist has attempted to deal with them. The fact is that the attributions indicated by such names as the line of heart, the line of life, the line of the head, and the line of fortune are purely arbitrary, as are those of the monticules Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, the Sun, Mercury, Mars, and the Moon. In past times there have been great divergences in their interpretation by different schools, and the present uniformity is as devoid of any conceivable relation to fact as were the former divergences. It is impossible to discuss the asserted correlation of the lines and monticules of the hand with either character or life-history, since no facts are offered in support of the notion that there is such a correlation. We have bare assertion, and nothing more, as in most of the other doctrines of magic.
The shape of the hand and of the fingers, and the softness, hardness, dryness, and moisture of the skin are taken into account by most palmists. Few, if any, of those who pretend at the present day to "read" a hand are really acquainted with the elaborate rules laid down by the painstaking, if deluded, people who endeavoured to construct a sort of astrology of the hand by assigning the names of heavenly bodies to parts of it. The modern professional palmist forms a judgment and guess as to his or her client's character and probable past and future history by indications and information obtained from the client's face, manner, conversation, costume, and personal acquaintance. If a vague prophecy made by the "fortune-teller" should by hazard turn out to be near the truth, it is remembered and quoted by the client as a proof of the truth of palmistry; if it does not prove to be correct, it is forgotten.