People having such hands naturally have very little mental development or ability. They are found engaged in occupations requiring only unskilled labour and the very lowest even of that.
They are violent in temper, and have little or no control over their passions or their anger. They are coarse in their ideas, possess little or no sentiment, no imagination or feeling, and it has been found that even the nerve system of such types is more or less in a state of non-development. They do not feel pain as the higher types of humanity feel it, and have little ambition except to eat, drink, and sleep.
Note.--The thumb is extremely short and low-set with the Elementary type.
[Illustration: FIG. 1--THE ELEMENTARY HAND. FIG. 2--THE SQUARE OR USEFUL HAND.
FIG. 3--THE SPATULATE HAND. FIG. 4--THE PHILOSOPHIC HAND.
The Square type (Plate I., Part II.,) is so designated on account of the palm being like a square in shape, or at least nearly so. Such a hand in fact "looks square." It is rather straight or even at the wrist, at the base of the fingers, and also at the sides. The fingers themselves also have a "square-cut" appearance. The thumb is, however, nearly always long, well-shaped, and set high on the palm, and stands well out from the palm.
The Square Hand is also called the practical or useful hand. People who possess this type are essentially practical, logical, and rather materialistic. They belong to the earth and the things of the earth. They have little imagination or idealism, they are solid, serious workers, methodical and painstaking in all they do. They believe in things only by proof and by their reason. They are often religious and even superstitious, but more from habit than from anything else.
They are determined and obstinate, especially if their thumbs are long and the first joint stiff.[7]
They succeed in all lines of work that do not require imagination or the creative faculties, and as business men, lawyers, doctors, scientists, they do extremely well, and are generally to be found in such callings.
The Spatulate or active nervous type (Plate I., Part II.) is usually crooked or irregular looking, with large tips or pads at the ends of the fingers, rather like the spatula chemists use and from which peculiarity this type gets its name. The people who possess this type are in fact always "pounding" at something. They are full of untiring energy, enormous workers in everything they take up, and generally remarkable for their originality.