The hand is divided…

The hand is divided into two parts: the male part and the female one.
The male part is at the north. The female part at the south.
The head line forms the separation between male and female, north and south.
The people of the north inevitably have to work, and it is inevitably too that progress, the result of hard work, comes to them. Should they remain inactive, bad weather, cold, hunger would soon destroy them. Their eagerness is twofold. Whenever they want to stop, need whips them on.
The people of the south hardly need a shelter, they don’t suffer from cold, and their indolent hunger is easily appeased. They need twice as much keenness for work. The sky is so beautiful, the sea is so blue, the air so fragrant, so sweet is contemplation! And contemplation stirs imagination and awakens sensual love that charms and softens.
And look: the people of the north have industry, Mercury; the art based on science, Apollo; ambition that prevents laziness, Jupiter.
All that is male.
The people of the south have sensual love, imagination.
All that is female.

 
Extract from Mysteries of the hand, by A. Desbarrolles, 1859.