which carry in them the motto of our souls, wherein he
that can read A, B, C, may read our natures. I hold,
moreover, that there is a phytognomy, or physiognomy,
not only of men, but of plants and vegetables; and is
every one of them some outward figures which hang as
signs or bushes of their inward forms. The finger of
God hath left an inscription upon all his works, not
graphical, or composed of letters, but of their several
forms, constitutions, parts, and operations, which, aptly
joined together, do make one word that doth express
their natures. By these letters God calls the stars by
their names; and by this alphabet Adam assigned to
every creature a name peculiar to its nature. Now,
there are, besides these characters in our faces, certain
mystical figures in our hands, which I dare not call
mere dashes, strokes a la volee or at random, because
delineated by a pencil that never works in vain; and
hereof I take more particular notice, because I carry
that in mine own hand which I could never read of nor
discover in another. Aristotle, I confess, in his acute
and singular book of physiognomy, hath made no
mention of chiromancy:<80> yet I believe the Egyptians,
who were nearer addicted to those abstruse and mysti-
cal sciences, had a knowledge therein: to which those
vagabond and counterfeit Egyptians did after<81> pretend,
and perhaps retained a few corrupted principles, which
sometimes might verify their prognosticks.

It is the common wonder of all men, how, among so
many millions of faces, there should be none alike: