A manual of cheirosophy : being a complete practical handbook of the twin sciences of cheirognomy and cheiromancy, by means whereof the past, the present, and the future may be read in the formations of the hands ; preceded by an introductory argument upon the science of cheirosophy and its claims to rank as a physical science / by Ed. Heron-Allen ... with full-page and other illustrations by Rosamund Brunel Horsley.
- Heron-Allen, Edward, 1861-1943.
- Date:
- 1892
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: A manual of cheirosophy : being a complete practical handbook of the twin sciences of cheirognomy and cheiromancy, by means whereof the past, the present, and the future may be read in the formations of the hands ; preceded by an introductory argument upon the science of cheirosophy and its claims to rank as a physical science / by Ed. Heron-Allen ... with full-page and other illustrations by Rosamund Brunel Horsley. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![Cheirosophy, and what can be more mistaken than this neglect ? Once allow that the claims of the science are genuine, and we have before us a science of the most astounding importance to humanity; let it, therefore, be investigated, and if investigation proves that the science is chimerical, the time which will have been thus employed will not have been wasted, but will have been most profitably spent in the timely suppression of a vast and degrading illusion. We know, all of us, by bitter experience, that ^[103. religion, and even on occasion science, will denounce Narrow-minded ° ' ' arguments ot and deny not only theories, but even facts, when religion and they are opposed to them. [Thus, for instance, at science, the end of the last century, it was firmly denied that aerolites fell, or could fall, from the sky, and the idea was utterly ridiculed.] The term “scientific impossibility” is too often nothing more or less than a synonym for “ reasonable improbability.” A writer in the Allgemeine Zeitnng, in March 1884, summed up these points with much concise- ness, pointing out the counter-danger that once people begin to be convinced they are painfully apt to take everything and anything upon trust; he sums up his discourse by saying :—“ In our opinion, super- stition will only come to an end when exact science will take the trouble to examine, without prejudice, the facts it has hitherto distinctly denied; that is to say, when it will approach them with the admission that things are not necessarily untrue, because they are unexplained.” The causes of psychological ignorance are princi- ^ 104. pally these : the imperfections of language, which Obstacles to the prevent people from explaining and defining what they really mean; the tendency to grasp general principles without studying particular facts; the extreme difficulty we experience in getting at any](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b28125721_0101.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
