The fingers

Cheiro 1897 starts with the joints. He calls them walls between the phalanges and says smooth joints go with quick, impulsive conclusions, while developed joints go with a more deliberate habit. Work does not change them, he says, since smooth joints turn up on hard manual workers and knotty ones on people who do only mental work.

He then reads length and spacing. Short fingers are quick and take things in the mass, and he adds that they care less for small details and social forms. A wide gap between the first and second fingers he reads as independence of thought, and a wide gap between the third and fourth as independence of action. An excessively long first finger he reads as pride and a wish to rule.

Benham 1900 links each finger to the mount at its base, and names them Jupiter, Saturn, Apollo and Mercury from the index outward. He sorts fingertips into spatulate, square, conic and pointed, and gives the three phalanges, from the tip down, to the mind, to business and to the appetites.