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Title: How to Analyze People on Sight
Through the Science of Human Analysis: The Five Human Types
Author: Elsie Lincoln Benedict and Ralph Paine Benedict
Release Date: December 4, 2009 [eBook #30601]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOW TO ANALYZE PEOPLE ON SIGHT***
¶ To the following men and women we wish to express our appreciation for
their share in the production of this book:
To Duren J. H. Ward, Ph. D.,
formerly of the Anthropology Department of Harvard University, who,
as the discoverer of the fourth human type, has added immeasurably
to the world's knowledge of human science.
To Raymond H. Lufkin,
of Boston, who made the illustrations for this volume
scientifically accurate.
To The Roycrofters,
of East Aurora, whose artistic workmanship made it into a thing of
beauty.
And last but not least,
To Sarah H. Young,
of San Francisco, our Business Manager, whose efficiency correlated
all these and placed the finished product in the hands of our
students.
THE AUTHORS
New York City,
June, 1921
| Page | ||
| HUMAN ANALYSIS | 11 | |
| CHAPTER I | ||
| The Alimentive Type | 37 | |
| "The Enjoyer" | ||
| CHAPTER II | ||
| The Thoracic Type | 83 | |
| "The Thriller" | ||
| CHAPTER III | ||
| The Muscular Type | 133 | |
| "The Worker" | ||
| CHAPTER IV | ||
| The Osseous Type | 177 | |
| "The Stayer" | ||
| CHAPTER V | ||
| The Cerebral Type | 217 | |
| "The Thinker" | ||
| CHAPTER VI | ||
| Types That Should and Should Not Marry Each Other |
263 | |
| CHAPTER VII | ||
| Vocations for Each Type | 311 |
"Over fifty thousand people heard Elsie Lincoln Benedict at the City
Auditorium during her six weeks lecture engagement in
Milwaukee." - Milwaukee Leader, April 2, 1921.
"Elsie Lincoln Benedict has a brilliant record. She is like a fresh
breath of Colorado ozone. Her ideas are as stimulating as the
health-giving breezes of the Rockies." - New York Evening Mail, April
16, 1914.
"Several hundred people were turned away from the Masonic Temple last
night where Elsie Lincoln Benedict, famous human analyst, spoke on 'How
to Analyze People on Sight.' Asked how she could draw and hold a crowd
of 3,000 for a lecture, she said: 'Because I talk on the one subject on
earth in which every individual is most interested - himself.'" - Seattle
Times, June 2, 1920.
"Elsie Lincoln Benedict is a woman who has studied deeply under genuine
scientists and is demonstrating to thousands at the Auditorium each
evening that she knows the connection between an individual's external
characteristics and his inner traits." - Minneapolis News, November 7,
1920.
"Elsie Lincoln Benedict is known nationally, having conducted lecture courses in many of the large Eastern cities. Her work is based upon the practical methods of modern science as worked out in the world's leading laboratories where exhaustive tests are applied to determine individual types, talents, vocational bents and possibilities." - San Francisco Bulletin, January 25, 1919.
Modern science has proved that the fundamental traits of every individual are indelibly stamped in the shape of his body, head, face and hands - an X-ray by which you can read the characteristics of any person on sight.
he most essential thing in the world to any individual is to understand himself. The next is to understand the other fellow. For life is largely a problem of running your own car as it was built to be run, plus getting along with the other drivers on the highway.
From this book you are going to learn which type of car you are and the main reasons why you have not been getting the maximum of service out of yourself.
Also you are going to learn the makes of other human cars, and how to
get the maximum of co-operation out of them. This co-operation is vital
to happiness and success. We come in contact with our fellowman in all
the activities of our lives and what we get out of life depends, to an
astounding degree, on our relations with him.
¶ The greatest problem facing any organism is successful reaction to its environment. Environment, speaking scientifically, is the sum total of your experiences. In plain United States, this means fitting vocationally, socially and maritally into the place where you are.[Pg 12]
If you don't fit you must move or change your environment to fit you.
If you can't change the environment and you won't move you will become a
failure, just as tropical plants fail when transplanted to the Nevada
desert.
¶ But there is something that grows and keeps on growing in the Nevada
desert - the sagebrush. It couldn't move away and it couldn't change its
waterless environment, so it did what you and I must do if we expect to
succeed. It adapted itself to its environment, and there it stands, each
little stalwart shrub a reminder of what even a plant can do when it
tries!
¶ Human life faces the same alternatives that confront all other forms
of life - of adapting itself to the conditions under which it must live
or becoming extinct. You have an advantage over the sagebrush in that
you can move from your city or state or country to another, but after
all that is not much of an advantage. For though you may improve your
situation slightly you will still find that in any civilized country the
main elements of your problem are the same.
¶ So long as you live in a civilized or thickly populated community you
will still need to understand your own nature and the natures of other
people.  You will never get far without the co-operation, confidence and
comradeship of other men and women.
¶ It was not always so. And its recentness in human history may account for some of our blindness to this great fact.
In primitive times people saw each other rarely and had much less to do
with each other. The human element was then not the chief problem. Their
environmental problems had to do with such things as the elements,
violent storms, extremes of heat and cold, darkness, the ever-present
menace of wild beasts whose flesh was their food, yet who would eat them
first unless they were quick in brain and body.
¶ But all that is changed. Man has subjugated all other creatures and
now walks the earth its supreme sovereign. He has discovered and
invented and builded until now we live in skyscrapers, talk around the
world without wires and by pressing a button turn darkness into
daylight.
¶ Yet with all our knowledge of the outside world ninety-nine lives out of every hundred are comparative failures.
¶ The reason is plain to every scientific investigator. We have failed
to study ourselves in relation to the great environmental problem of
today. The stage-setting has been[Pg 14] changed but not the play. The game is
the same old game - you must adjust and adapt yourself to your
environment or it will destroy you.
¶ The cities of today look different from the jungles of our ancestors
and we imagine that because the brain of man overcame the old menaces no
new ones have arisen to take their place. We no longer fear
extermination from cold. We turn on the heat. We are not afraid of the
vast oceans which held our primitive forebears in thrall, but pass
swiftly, safely and luxuriously over their surfaces. And soon we shall
be breakfasting in New York and dining the same evening in San
Francisco!
¶ But in building up this stupendous superstructure of modern
civilization man has brought into being a society so intricate and
complex that he now faces the new environmental problem of human
relationships.
¶ Today we depend for life's necessities almost wholly upon the activities of others.
And this fellowman of ours has multiplied, since that dim[Pg 15] distant dawn,
into almost two billion human beings, with at least one billion of them
after the very things you want, and not a tenth enough to go around!
¶ Who will win? Nature answers for you.  Today our environmental problem consists
largely of the other fellow. Only those who learn to adapt themselves to
their fellows can win great or lasting rewards.
¶ To do this it is necessary to better understand our neighbors - to
recognize that people differ from each other in their likes and
dislikes, traits, talents, tendencies and capabilities. The combination
of these makes each individual's nature. It is not difficult to
understand others for with each group of these traits there always goes
its corresponding physical makeup - the externals whereby the internal is
invariably indicated. This is true of every species on the globe and of
every subdivision within each species.
¶ All dogs belong to the same species but there is a great difference
between the "nature" of a St. Bernard and that of a terrier, just as
there is a decided difference between the natures of different human
beings. But in both instances the[Pg 16] actions, reactions and habits of each
can be accurately anticipated on sight by the shape, size and structure
of the two creatures.
¶ When a terrier comes into the room you instinctively draw away unless you want to be jumped at and greeted effusively. But you make no such movement to protect yourself from a St. Bernard because you read, on sight, the different natures of these two from their external appearance.
¶ You know a rose, a violet, a sunflower and an orchid and what perfume you are sure to find in each, by the same method. All are flowers and all belong to the same species, just as all human beings belong to the same species. But their respective size, shape and structure tell you in advance and on sight what their respective characteristics are.
The same is true of all human beings. They differ in certain
fundamentals but always and invariably in accordance with their
differences in size, shape and structure.
¶ The reason for this is plain. Goaded by the instinct of
self-preservation, man, like all other living things, has made heroic
efforts to meet the demands of his environment. He has been more
successful than any other creature and is, as a result, the most complex
organism on the earth. But his most baffling complexities resolve
themselves into comparatively simple terms once it is recognized that
each internal change brought about by his environment brought with it[Pg 17]
the corresponding external mechanism without which he could not have
survived.
¶ So today we see man a highly evolved creature who not only acts but thinks and feels. All these thoughts, feelings and emotions are interrelated.
The body and the mind of man are so closely bound together that whatever
affects one affects the other. An instantaneous change of mind instantly
changes the muscles of the face. A violent thought instantly brings
violent bodily movements.
¶ The moving picture industry - said to be the third largest in the
world - is based largely on this interrelation. This industry would
become extinct if something were to happen to sever the connection
between external expressions and the internal nature of men and women.
¶ How much do external characteristics tell about a man? They tell, with
amazing accuracy, all the basic, fundamental principal traits of his
nature. The size, shape and structure of a man's body tell more
important facts about his real self - what he thinks and what he
does - than the average mother ever knows about her own child.
¶ If this sounds impossible, if the seeming incongruity,[Pg 18] multiplicity and heterogeneity of human qualities have baffled you, remember that this is exactly how the print in all books and newspapers baffled you before you learned to read.
Not long ago I was reading stories aloud to a three-year old. She wanted to "see the pictures," and when told there were none had to be shown the book.
"What funny little marks!" she cried, pointing to the print. "How do you get stories out of them?"
Printing looked to all of us at first just masses of meaningless little marks.
But after a few days at school how things did begin to clear up! It
wasn't a jumble after all. There was something to it. It straightened
itself out until the funny little marks became significant. Each of them
had a meaning and the same meaning under all conditions. Through them
your whole outlook on life became deepened and broadened - all because
you learned the meaning of twenty-six little letters and their
combinations!
¶ Learning to read men and women is a more delightful process than learning to read books, for every person you see is a true story, more romantic and absorbing than any ever bound in covers.
Learning to read people is also a simpler process than learning to read books because there are fewer letters in the human alphabet. Though man seems to the untrained eye a mystifying mass of "funny little marks," he is not now difficult to analyze.[Pg 19]
¶ This is because there are after all but a few kinds of human feelings.
Some form of hunger, love, hate, fear, hope or ambition gives rise to
every human emotion and every human thought.
¶ Now our actions follow our thoughts. Every thought, however
transitory, causes muscular action, which leaves its trace in that part
of the physical organism which is most closely allied to it.
¶ Look into the mirror the next time you are angry, happy, surprised, tired or sorrowful and note the changes wrought by your emotions in your facial muscles.
Constant repetition of the same kinds of thoughts or emotions finally
makes permanent changes in that part of the body which is
physiologically related to these mental processes.
¶ The jaw is a good illustration of this alliance between the mind and the body. Its muscles and bones are so closely allied to the pugnacity instinct center in the brain that the slightest thought of combat causes the jaw muscles to stiffen. Let the thought of any actual physical encounter go through your mind and your jaw bone will automatically move upward and outward.[Pg 20]
After a lifetime of combat, whether by fists or words, the jaw sets
permanently a little more upward and outward - a little more like that of
the bulldog. It keeps to this combative mold, "because," says Mother
Nature, the great efficiency expert, "if you are going to call on me
constantly to stiffen that jaw I'll fix it so it will stay that way and
save myself the trouble."
¶ Thus the more combative jaw, having become permanent in the man's organism, can be passed on to his children.
¶ Right here comes a most interesting law and one that has made possible
the science of Human Analysis:
¶ The larger any part or organ the better its equipment for carrying
out the work of that organ and the more does it tend to express itself.
Nature IS an efficiency expert and doesn't give you an oversupply of
anything without demanding that you use it.
¶ Our ancestors developed massive jaws as a result of constant combat.
As fast as civilization decreased the necessity for combat Nature
decreased the size of the average human jaw.
¶ But wherever you see a large protruding jaw you see an individual
"armed and engined," as Kipling says, for some[Pg 21] kind of fighting. The
large jaw always goes with a combative nature, whether it is found on a
man or a woman, a child, a pugilist or a minister.
¶ The large jaw, therefore, is seen to be both a result and a cause of
certain things. As the inheritance of a fighting ancestor it is the
result of millions of years of fighting in prehistoric times, and, like
any other over-developed part or organ, it has an intense urge to
express itself. This inherent urge is what makes the owner of that jaw
"fight at the drop of the hat," and often have "a chip on his shoulder."
¶ Thus, because every external characteristic is the result of natural
laws, and chiefly of natural selection, the vital traits of any creature
can be read from his externals. Every student of biology, anatomy,
anthropology, ethnology or psychology is familiar with these facts.
¶ Man's organism has developed, altered, improved and evolved "down
through the slow revolving years" with one instinctive aim - successful
reaction to its environment. Every part has been laboriously constructed
to that sole end. Because of this its functions are marked as clearly
upon it as those of a grain elevator, a steamship or a piano.
¶ Nature has no accidents, she wastes no material and[Pg 22] everything has a
purpose.
If you don't, she says you are not fit to people the earth and lets you
go without a pang. Thus she weeds out all but the strong - and evolution
marches on.
¶ This inherent potentiality for altering the organism to meet the demands of the environment is especially noticeable in races and is the reason for most racial differences.
Differences in environment - climate, altitude and topography
necessitated most of these physical differentiations which today enable
us to know at a glance whether a man belongs to the white race, the
yellow race, or the black race. The results of these differentiations
and modifications will be told in the various chapters of this book.
¶ The student of Human Analysis reads the disposition and nature of
every individual with ease regardless of whether that individual be an
American, a Frenchman, a Kaffir or a Chinaman, because Human Analysis
explains those fundamental traits which run through every race, color
and nationality, according to the externals which always go with those
traits.
¶ Human Analysis differs from every other system of[Pg 23] character analysis in that it classifies man, for the first time, into five types according to his biological evolution.
¶ It deals with man in the light of the most recent scientific
discoveries. It estimates each individual according to his "human"
qualities rather than his "character" or so-called "moral" qualities. In
other words, it takes his measure as a human being and determines from
his externals his chances for success in the world of today.
¶ Every rule in this book is based on scientific data, has been proved to be accurate by investigations and surveys of all kinds of people in all parts of the world.
These rules do not work merely part of the time. They work all the time, under all conditions and apply to every individual of every race, every color, every country, every community and every family.
Through this latest human science you can learn to read people as easily
as you read books - if you will take the little time and pains to learn
the rules which compose your working alphabet.
¶ It is easy to know what an individual will do under most circumstances
because every human being does what he wants to do in the way he
prefers to do it most of the time. If you doubt it try this test:
bring to mind any intimate friends, or even that husband or wife, and
note how few changes they have made in their way of doing things in
twenty years!
¶ Every human being is born with preferences and predilections which
manifest themselves from earliest childhood to death. These inborn
tendencies are never obliterated and seldom controlled to any great
extent, and then only by individuals who have learned the power of the
mind over the body. Inasmuch as this knowledge is possessed by only a
few, most of the people of the earth are blindly following the dictates
of their inborn leanings.
¶ In other words, more than ninety-nine per cent of all the people you
know are following their natural bents in reacting to all their
experiences - from the most trivial incidents to the most far-reaching
emergencies.
¶ The individual is seldom conscious of these habitual acts of his, much
less of where he got them. The nearest he comes is to say he "got it
from his father" or "she takes it from grandmother." But where did
grandmother get it?
¶ Science has taken the trouble to investigate and today we know not only where grandmother got it but what she did with it. She got it along with her size, shape and structure - in other words, from her type - and she did just what you and everybody else does with his type-characteristics.
This law holds throughout every species and explains man - who likes to
think himself a deep mystery - as it explains every other creature.
¶ Look around you in shop, office, field or home and you will find that
the quick, alert, impulsive man is acting quickly, alertly and
impulsively most of the time. Nothing less than a calamity slows him
down and then only temporarily; while the slow, patient, mild and
passive individual is acting slowly, patiently, mildly and passively in
spite of all goads. Some overwhelming passion or crisis may speed him up
momentarily but as soon as it fades he reverts to his old slow habits.
¶ Human Analysis is the new science which shows you how to recognize the slow man, the quick man, the stubborn man, the yielding man, the leader, the learner, and all other basic kinds of men on sight from the shape, size and structure of their bodies.
Certain bodily shapes indicate predispositions to fatness, leanness,
boniness, muscularity and nervousness, and this predisposition is so
much a part of the warp and woof of the individual that he can not
disguise it. The urge given him by this inborn mechanism is so strong as
to be practically irresistible. Every experience of his life calls
forth[Pg 26] some kind of reaction and invariably the reaction will be
similar, in every vital respect, to the reactions of other people who
have bodies of the same general size, shape and structure as his own.
¶ No person achieves success or happiness when compelled to do what he
naturally dislikes to do. Since these likes and dislikes stay with him
to the grave, one of the biggest modern problems is that of helping men
and women to discover and to capitalize their inborn traits.
¶ Every individual does best those things which permit him to act in accordance with his natural bents. This explains why we like best those things we do best. It takes real enthusiasm to make a success of any undertaking for nothing less than enthusiasm can turn on a full current.
We struggle from the cradle to the grave for self-expression and
everything that pushes us in a direction opposed to our natural
tendencies is done half-heartedly, inefficiently and disgruntledly.
These are the steps that lead straight to failure. Yet failure can be
avoided and success approximated by every normal person if he will take
the same precaution with his own machinery that he takes with his
automobile.
¶ If you were presented with a car by your ancestors[Pg 27] - which is
precisely what happened to you at birth - you would not let an hour go by
without finding out what make or type of car it was. Before a week
elapsed you would have taken the time, labor and interest to learn how
to run it, - not merely any old way, but the best way for that
particular make of car.
¶ There are five makes or types of human cars, differing as definitely
in size, shape and structure as Fords differ from Pierce-Arrows. Each
human type differs as widely in its capacities, possibilities and
aptitudes as a Ford differs from a Pierce-Arrow. Like the Ford or Pierce
the externals indicate these functional differences with unfailing
accuracy. Furthermore just as a Ford never changes into a Pierce nor a
Pierce into a Ford, a human being never changes his type. He may modify
it, train it, polish it or control it somewhat, but he will never change
it.
¶ The student of Human Analysis cannot be deceived as to the type of any individual any more than you can be deceived about the make of a car.
One may "doll up" a Ford to his heart's content - remove the hood and top
and put on custom-made substitutes - it is still a Ford, always will be a
Ford and you can always detect that it is a Ford. It will do valuable,
necessary things but only those things it was designed to do and in its
own particular manner; nor could a Pierce act like a Ford.
¶ So it is with human cars. Maybe you have been awed by the jewels and
clothes with which many human Fords disguise themselves. The chances are
that you have overlooked a dozen Pierces this week because their paint
was rusty.  The world classifies human beings
according to their superficialities. To the world a human motorcycle can
pass for a Rolls-Royce any day if sufficiently camouflaged with
diamonds, curls, French heels and plucked eyebrows.
¶ In the same manner many a bicycle in human form gets elected to
Congress because he plays his machinery for all it is worth and gets a
hundred per cent service out of it. Every such person learned early in
life what kind of car he was and capitalized its natural tendencies.
¶ Nothing is more unsafe than to attempt to judge the actual natures of
people by their clothes, houses, religious faith, political
affiliations, prejudices, dialect, etiquette or customs. These are only
the veneer laid on by upbringing,[Pg 29] teachers, preachers, traditions and
other forces of suggestion, and it is a veneer so thin that trifles
scratch it off.
¶ But the real individual is always there, filled with the tendencies of his type, bending always toward them, constantly seeking opportunities to run as he was built to run, forever striving toward self-expression. It is this ever-active urge which causes him to revert, in the manifold activities of everyday life, to the methods, manners and peculiarities common to his type.
This means that unless he gets into an environment, a vocation and a
marriage which permits of his doing what he wants to do he will be
miserable, inefficient, unsuccessful and sometimes criminal.
¶ That this is the true explanation of crime has been recognized for many years by leading thinkers. Two prison wardens - Thomas Tynan of Colorado and Thomas Mott Osborne of Sing Sing - effectively initiated penal reforms based upon it.
Every crime, like every personal problem, arises from some kind of situation wherein instinct is thwarted by outside influence.
¶ Human Analysis teaches you to recognize, on sight, the predominant instincts of any individual - in brief, what that individual is inclined to do under all the general situations of his life. You know what the world tries to compel him to do. If the discrepancy between these two is beyond the reach of his type he refuses to do what society[Pg 30] demands. This and this only is back of every human digression from indiscretion to murder.
It is as vain to expect to eradicate these inborn trends and put others
in their places as to make a sewing machine out of an airplane or an oak
out of a pine. The most man can do for his neighbor is to understand and
inspire him. The most he can do for himself is to understand and
organize his inborn capacities.
¶ The first problem of your happiness is to find out what type you are yourself - which you will know after reading this book - and to build your future accordingly.
¶ The second is to learn how to analyze others to the end that your relationships with them may be harmonious and mutually advantageous.
Take every individual according to the way he was born, accept him as that kind of mechanism and deal with him in the manner befitting that mechanism. In this way and this only will you be able to impress or to help others.
In this way only will you be able to achieve real success. In this way
only will you be able to help your fellowman find the work, the
environment and the marriage wherein he can be happy and successful.
¶ To get the maximum of pleasure and knowledge out of[Pg 31] this interesting
course there are four things to remember as your part of the contract.
¶ Think of what you are reading while you are reading it.
Concentration is a very simple thing. The next C is
¶ Look at people carefully (but not starefully) when analyzing them.
Don't jump at conclusions. We humans have a great way of twisting facts
to fit our conclusion as soon as we have made one. But don't spend all
your time getting ready to decide and forget to decide at all, like the
man who was going to jump a ditch. He ran so far back to get a good
start each time that he never had the strength to jump when he got
there. Get a good start by observing carefully. Then
¶ Be sure you are right and then go ahead. Make a decision and make it
with the confidence that you are right. If you will determine now to
follow this rule it will compel you to follow the first two because, in
order to be sure you are right, to be certain you are not misjudging
anybody, you will read each rule concentratedly and observe each person
carefully beforehand.
¶ "Practice makes perfect." Take this for your motto if you would become
expert in analyzing people. It is one[Pg 32] easily followed for you come in
contact with people everywhere - at home, amongst your business
associates, with your friends and on the street. Remember you can only
benefit from a thing as you use it. A car that you never took out of the
garage would be of no value to you. So get full value out of this course
by using it at all times.
¶ These rules are scientific. They are true and they are true always.
They are very valuable tools for the furtherance of your progress
through life.
An understanding of people is the greatest weapon you can possess.
Therefore these are the most precious tools you can own. But like every
tool in the world and all knowledge in the world, they must be used as
they were built to be used or you will get little service out of them.
You would not expect to run a car properly without paying the closest
attention to the rules for clutches, brakes, starters and gears.
Everything scientific is based not on guesses but laws. This course in
Analyzing People on Sight is as scientific as the automobile. It will
carry you far and do it easily if you will do your part. Your part
consists of learning the few simple rules laid down in this book and in
applying them in the everyday affairs of your life.
¶ Many things which have been found to be true in almost every instance
could have been included in this course. But we prefer to make fewer
statements and have those of[Pg 33] bedrock certainty. Therefore this course,
like all our courses, consists exclusively of those facts which have
been found to be true in every particular of people in normal health.
¶ This book deals with PURE or UNMIXED types only. When you understand
these, the significance of their several combinations as seen in
everyday life will be clear to you.
¶ Just as you can not understand the meaning of a word until you know
the letters that go into the makeup of that word, you cannot analyze
people accurately until you get these five extreme types firmly in your
mind, for they are your alphabet.
¶ Each PURE type is the result of the over-development of one of the five biological systems possessed by all human beings - the nutritive, circulatory, muscular, bony or nervous.
Therefore every individual exhibits to some degree the characteristics
of all the five types.[Pg 34]
¶ But his PREDOMINANT traits and INDIVIDUALITY - the things that make him
the KIND of man he is - agree infallibly with whichever one of the five
systems PREDOMINATES in him.
¶ The average American man or woman is a COMBINATION of some two of
these types with a third discernible in the background.
¶ To understand human beings familiarize yourself first with the PURE or
UNMIXED types and then it will be easy and fascinating to spell out
their combinations and what they mean in the people all about you.
¶ Until you have learned these pure types thoroughly it will be to your
advantage to forget that there is such a thing as combinations. After
you have these extreme types well in mind you will be ready to analyze
combinations.
¶ Science has discovered that there are five types of human beings. Discarding for a moment their technical names, they may be called the fat people, the florid people, the muscular people, the bony people and the mental people.
Each varies from the others in shape, size and structure and[Pg 35] is
recognizable at a glance by his physique or build. This is because his
type is determined by the preponderance within his body of one of the
five great departments or biological systems - the nutritive, the
circulatory, the muscular, the bony or the nervous.
¶ Every child is born with one of these systems more highly developed,
larger and better equipped than the others.
¶ Throughout his life this system will express itself more, be more
intense and constant in its functioning than the others and no manner of
training, education, environment or experience, so long as he remains in
normal health, will alter the predominance of this system nor prevent
its dictating his likes, dislikes and most of his reactions.
¶ If you do not understand why the overaction of one bodily system should influence a man's nature see if you can't recall more than one occasion when a square meal made a decided difference in your disposition within the space of thirty minutes.
If one good meal has the power to alter so completely our personalities
temporarily, is it then any wonder that constant overfeeding causes
everybody to love a fat man? For the fat man is habitually and
chronically in that beatific state which comes from over-eating.
Note: Bear in mind at the beginning of this and every other chapter,
that we are describing the extreme or unmixed type. Before leaving this
book you will understand combination types and should read people as
readily as you now read your newspaper.
hose individuals in whom the alimentive system
is more highly developed than any other are called Alimentives. The
alimentive system consists of the stomach, intestines, alimentary canal
and every part of the assimilative apparatus.
¶ A general rotundity of outline characterizes this type. He is round in every direction. Fat rolls away from his elbows, wrists, knees and shoulders. (See Chart 1)
¶ Soft flesh thickly padded over a small-boned body distinguishes the pure Alimentive type. In men of this type the largest part of the body is around the girth; in women it is around the hips. These always indicate a large nutritive system in good working order. Fat is only surplus tissue - the amount manufactured by the assimilative system over and above the needs of the body.
Fat is more soft and spongy than bone or muscle and lends to its wearer
a softer structure and appearance.
¶ Because his bones are small the pure Alimentive has small feet and
small hands. How many times you have noted with surprise that the two
hundred pound woman had tiny feet! The inconvenience of "getting around"
which you have noticed in her is due to the fact that while she has more
weight to carry she has smaller than average feet with which to do it.
¶ A head comparatively small for the body is[Pg 39] another characteristic of
the extreme Alimentive. The neck and lower part of the head are covered
with rolls of fat. This gives the head the effect of spreading outward
from the crown as it goes down to the neck, thus giving the neck a
short, disproportionately large appearance.
¶ A "full-moon" face with double or triple chins gives this man his "baby face." (See Chart 2) Look carefully at any extremely fat person and you will see that his features are inclined to the same immaturity of form that characterizes his body.
Very few fat men have long noses. Nearly all fat men and women have not only shorter, rounder noses but shorter upper lips, fuller mouths, rounder eyes and more youthful expressions than other people - in short, the features of childhood.
The entire physical makeup of this type is modeled upon the
circle - round hands with dimples where the knuckles are supposed to be;
round fingers, round feet, round waist, round limbs, sloping shoulders,
curving thighs, bulging calves, wrists and ankles.
Wherever you see curves predominating in the[Pg 41] physical outlines of any
person, that person is largely of the Alimentive type and will always
exhibit alimentive traits.
¶ The Alimentive is a man of unhurried, undulating movements. The difficulty in moving large bodies quickly necessitates a slowing down of all his activities. These people are easeful in their actions, make as few moves as possible and thereby lend an air of restfulness wherever they go.
Because it is difficult to turn their heads, extremely fat people seldom
are aware of what goes on behind them.
¶ Very fat people waddle when they walk, though few of them realize it.
They can not watch themselves go by and no one else has the heart to
impart bad news to this pleasant person.
¶ The fat man spills over chairs and out of his clothes. Big arm chairs,
roomy divans and capacious automobiles are veritable dykes to these men.
Note the bee-line the fat person makes for the big leather chair when he
enters a room![Pg 42]
¶ The best that money can buy are the kinds of clothes purchased by the Alimentive whenever he can afford them. And it often happens that he can afford them, especially if the Cerebral system comes second in his makeup. If he is in middle circumstances his clothes will be chosen chiefly for comfort. Even the rich Alimentive "gets into something loose" as soon as he is alone. Baggy trousers, creased sleeves, soft collars and soft cuffs are seen most frequently on fat men.
Comfort is one of the very first aims of this type. To attain it he
often wears old shoes or gloves long past their time to save breaking in
a new pair.
¶ Cold weather affects this type. If you will look about you the first
cold day of autumn you will note that most of the overcoats are on the
plump men.
¶ Never to take anything too seriously is an unconscious policy of fat
people. They show it plainly in their actions and speech.  He is often a "jollier"
and tells stories well, especially anecdotes and personal experiences.
¶ He seldom relates his troubles and often appears not to have any. He avoids references to isms and ologies and gives a wide berth to all who deal in them. Radical groups seldom number any extremely fat men among their members, and when they do it is usually for some other purpose than those mentioned in the by-laws.
 Between meals
he usually manages to stow away a generous supply of candy, ice cream,
popcorn and fruit. We have interviewed countless popcorn and fruit
vendors on this subject and every one of them told us that the fat
people kept them in business.[Pg 44]
¶ As for the ice cream business, take a look the next time you pass a
soda fountain and note the large percentage of fat people joyfully
scooping up mountains of sundaes, parfaits and banana splits.  naively inquires the fat man when it finally occurs to him - as it did to his friends long before - that he is surely and speedily taking on flesh.
If you don't know the answer, look at the table of any fat person in any
restaurant, café or dining room. He is eating with as much enthusiasm as
if he had just been rescued from a forty-day fast, instead of having
only a few hours before looked an equally generous meal in the eye and
put it all under his belt. The next time you are at an American plan
hotel where meals are restricted to certain hours note how the fat
people are always the first ones into the dining room when the doors are
opened![Pg 45]
¶ Butter, olive oil, cream, pastry and starches are foods that increase
your weight just as fast as you eat them, if your assimilative system is
anything like it should be. Though he is the last man in the world who
ought to indulge in them the fat man likes these foods above all others
and when compelled to have a meal without them feels as though he hadn't
eaten at all.
¶ We had a friend who decided to reduce. But in spite of the fact that
she lived on salads almost exclusively for a week she kept right on
gaining. We thought she had been surreptitiously treating herself to
lunches between meals until some one noticed the dressing with which she
drowned her lettuce: pure olive oil - a cupful at a sitting - "because,"
she said "I must have something tasty to camouflage the stuff."
¶ Once in California, where no city block is complete without its cafeteria, we took a committee from one of our Human Analysis classes to six of[Pg 46] these big establishments one noontime. To illustrate to them the authenticity of the facts we have stated above we prophesied what the fat ones would select for their meals.
Without exception their trays came by heaped with pies, cake, cream,
starchy vegetables and meat, just as we predicted.
¶ According to the statistics of the United States Life Insurance Companies fat people die younger than others. And the Insurance Companies ought to know, for upon knowing instead of guessing what it is that takes us off, depends the whole life insurance business. That they consider the extremely fat man an unsafe risk after thirty years of age is a well-known fact.
"I am interrupted every day by salesmen for everything on earth except one. But the life insurance agents leave me alone!" laughed a very fat young lawyer friend of ours the other morning - and he went on ordering ham and eggs, waffles, potatoes and coffee!
 He has such a good time doing it![Pg 47]
¶ It was no accident that "Ish ka bibble" was invented by the Hebrew.
 But the fat man
gets this philosophy from the same source that gives him most of his
other traits - his predominating system.
¶ The eating of delicious food is one of the most intense and poignant pleasures of life. The digestion of food, when one possesses the splendid machinery for it which characterizes the Alimentive, gives a deep feeling of serenity and contentment.
Since the fat man is always just going to a big meal or in the process
of digesting one he does not give himself a chance to become ill
natured.  No matter what comes or goes they have a good time and it is such an infectious one that others catch it from them.[Pg 48]
Did you ever notice how things pick up when the fat ones appear? Every hostess anticipates their arrival with pleasure and welcomes them with relief. She knows that she can relax now, and sure enough, Fatty hasn't his hat off till the atmosphere shows improvement. By the time Chubby gets into the parlor and passes a few of her sunny remarks the wheels are oiled for the evening and they don't run down till the last plump guest has said good night.
¶ So it is no wonder that fat people spend almost every evening at a
party. They get so many more invitations than the rest of us!
¶ People who take things as they find them are the ones the Alimentive prefers for friends, not only because, like the rest of us, he likes his own kind of folks, but because the other kind seem incongruous to him. He takes the attitude that resistance is a waste of energy. He knows other and easier ways of getting what he desires.
There are types who take a lively interest in those who are different from them, but not the Alimentive. He prefers easy-going, hospitable, complacent friends whose homes and hearts are always open[Pg 49] and whose minds run on the simple, personal things.
¶ The reason for this is obvious. All of us like the people, situations,
experiences and environments which bring out our natural tendencies,
which call into play those reflexes and reactions to which we tend
naturally.
¶ "Let's have something to eat" is a phrase whose hospitality has broken more ice and warmed more hearts than any other, unless perchance that rapidly disappearing "let's have something to drink." The fat person keeps at the head of his list those homey souls who set a good table and excel in the art of third and fourth helpings.
Because he is a very adaptable sort of individual this type can
reconcile himself to the other kind whenever it serves his purpose. But
the tenderest spots in his heart are reserved for those who encourage
him in his favorite indoor sport.
¶ A fat man seldom dislikes anybody very hard or for very long.
Really disliking anybody requires the expenditure of a good deal of energy and hating people is the[Pg 50] most strenuous work in the world. So the Alimentive refuses to take even his dislikes to heart. He is a consistent conserver of steam and this fact is one of the secrets of his success.
He applies this principle to everything in life. So he travels smoothly
through his dealings with others.
¶ "Forget it" is another phrase originated by the fat people. You will
hear them say it more often than any other type. And what is more, they
excel the rest of us in putting it into practice. The result is that
their nerves are usually in better working order. This type runs down
his batteries less frequently than any other.
¶ When he takes the trouble to think about it there are a few kinds of people the Alimentive does not care for. The man who is bent on discussing the problems of the universe, the highbrow who wants to practise his new relativity lecture on him, the theorist who is given to lengthy expatiations, and all advocates of new isms and ologies are avoided by the pure Alimentive. He calls them faddists, fanatics and fools.[Pg 51]
When he sees a highbrow approaching, instead of having it out with him
as some of the other types would, he finds he has important business
somewhere else. Thus he preserves his temperature, something that in the
average fat man seldom goes far above normal.
¶ Theories are the bane of this type. He just naturally doesn't believe in them. Scientific discoveries, unless they have to do with some new means of adding to his personal comforts, are taboo. The next time this one about "fat men dying young" is mentioned in his presence listen to his jolly roar. The speed with which he disposes of it will be beautiful to see!
"Say, I feel like a million dollars!" he will assure you if you read
this chapter to him.
¶ When you catch a three-inch steak homeward bound you will usually find
it tucked under the arm of a well-rounded householder. When his salary
positively prohibits the comforts of parlor,[Pg 52] bedroom and other parts of
the house the fat man will still see to it that the kitchen does not
lack for provender.
¶ The fat person likes to regale you with alluring descriptions of what
he had for breakfast, what he has ordered for lunch and what he is
planning for dinner - and the rarebit he has on the program for after the
theater.
¶ Most of us are committing suicide by inches in one form or another - and always in that form which is inherent in our type.
The Alimentive eats his way to the grave and has at least this much to
say for it: it is more delightful than the pet weaknesses by which the
other types hasten the final curtain.
¶ Diabetes is more common among this type than any other. Apoplexy comes next, especially if the fat man is also a florid man with a fast heart or an inclination to high blood pressure. A sudden breaking down of any or several of the vital organs is also[Pg 53] likely to occur to fat people earlier than to others. It is the price they pay for their years of over-eating.
¶ Overtaxed heart, kidneys and liver are inevitable results of too much food.
 This fact was a source of
surprise and much discussion on the part of newspapers, but not of the
scientists. The big question in treating this disease and its twin,
Pneumonia, is: will the heart hold out? Fat seriously handicaps the
heart.
¶ The human heart weighs less than a pound but it is the one organ in all our machinery that never takes a rest. It is the engine of the human car, and what a faithful little motor too - like the Ford engine which it so much resembles. If you live to be forty it chugs away forty years, and if you stay here ninety it stretches it to ninety, without an instant of vacation.[Pg 54]
But it must be treated with consideration and the first consideration is
not to overwork it. A Ford engine is large enough for a Ford car, for
Fords are light weight. As long as you do not weigh too much your engine
will carry you up the hills and down the dales of life with good old
Ford efficiency and at a pretty good gait.
¶ But when you take on fat you are doing to your engine what a Ford driver would be doing to his if he loaded his car with brick or scrap iron.
A Ford owner who intended to transport bricks the rest of his life could get a big-cylinder engine and substitute it for the original but you can't do that. This little four-cylinder affair is the only one you will ever have and no amount of money, position or affection can buy you a new one if you mistreat it. Like the Ford engine, it will stand for a good many pounds of excess baggage and still do good work. But if you load on too much and keep it there the day will come when its cylinders begin to skip.
¶ You may take it to the service station and pay the doctors to grind the valves, fix your carbureter and put in some new spark plugs. These may work[Pg 55] pretty well as long as you are traveling the paved highway of Perfect Health; you may keep up with the procession without noticing anything particularly wrong.
But come to the hill of Pneumonia or Diabetes and you are very likely
not to make the grade.
¶ The records in America show that thousands of men and women literally
"kill their engines" every year when they might have lived many years
longer.
¶ We live for happiness and each type finds its greatest happiness in following those innate urges determined by the most highly-developed system in its makeup.
The Alimentive's disposition, nature, character and personality are
built by and around his alimentary system. He is happiest when
gratifying it and whenever he thwarts it he is miserable, just as the
rest of us are when we thwart our predominant system.
¶ This type has so many traits needed by the world, however, and has
such extreme capacity for[Pg 56] enjoying life that the race, not to mention
himself, would profit greatly by his denying himself excessive amounts
of food.
¶ The good things of life - rich, abundant food and everything that serves the personal appetites - are the cravings of this type.
He purchases and uses more of the limousines, yachts and chefs than any
other three types combined, and gets more for his money out of them than
others do. The keynote of his nature is personal enjoyment. His senses
of touch and taste are also especially acute.
¶ You can tell a great deal about a man's type by noting for what classes of things he spends most of his extra money.
The Alimentive may have no fire insurance, no Liberty bonds, no real estate but he will have all the modern comforts he can possibly afford.
Most of the world's millionaires are fat and Human Analysis explains why. We make few efforts in life save to satisfy our most urgent demands, desires, and ambitions. Each human type differs in its crav[Pg 57]ings from each of the others and takes the respective means necessary to gratify these cravings.
The Alimentive craves those luxuries, comforts and conveniences which
only money can procure for him.
¶ When the Alimentive is a man of brains he uses his brains to get
money. No fat person enjoys work but the greater his brain capacity the
more will he forego leisure to make money.
¶ Any man's money-making ambitions depend largely on whether money is essential to the satisfaction of his predominating instincts.

 The fat man is essentially a
family man, a home man, a respectable, cottage-owning, tax-paying,
peaceable citizen.
¶ He inclines to the belief that other families, other communities,
other classes and other countries should work out their own salvation
and he leaves them to do it. In all charitable, philanthropic and
community "drives" he gives freely but is not lavish nor sentimental
about it. It is often a "business proposition" with him.
¶ Love of ease is the fat man's worst enemy. His inherent contentment, accentuated by the inconvenience of moving about easily or quickly, constantly tempts him to let things slide. When he lacks the brain capacity for figuring out ways and means for getting things easily he is never a great success at anything.
When the extremely fat man's mentality is below the average he often
refuses to work - in which case he becomes a familiar figure around
public[Pg 59] rest rooms, parks and the cheaper hotel lobbies. Such a man
finally graduates into the class of professional chair-warmers.
¶ A chance to do as we please, especially to do as little hard work as
possible, is a secret desire of almost everybody. But the fat man takes
the prize for wanting it most.
¶ He is not constructed to work hard like some of the other types, as we
shall see in subsequent chapters. His overweight is not only a handicap
in that it slows down his movements, but it tends to slow down all his
vital processes as well and to overload his heart. This gives him a
chronic feeling of heaviness and inertia.
¶ But Nature must have intended fat people to manage the rest of us
instead of taking a hand at the "heavy work." She made them averse to
toil and then made them so likable that they can usually get the rest of
us to do their hardest work for them.[Pg 60]
¶ When he is brainy the fat man never stays in the lower ranks of
subordinates. He may get a late start in an establishment but he will
soon make those over him like him so well they will promote him to a
chief-clerkship, a foremanship or a managership. Once there he will make
those under him so fond of him that they will work long and hard for
him.
¶ In this way the fat man of real brains goes straight to the top while
others look on and bewail the fact that they do most of the actual work.
They fail to recognize that the world always pays the big salaries not
for hand work but for head work, and not so much for working yourself as
for your ability to get others to work.
¶ This capacity for managing, controlling and winning others is what
enables this type to succeed so well in politics. The fat man knows how
to get votes. He mixes with everybody, jokes with everybody, remembers
to ask how the children are - and pretty soon he's the head of his ward.
Almost every big political boss is fat.[Pg 61]
¶ One man is but one man and at best can do little more than a good
man-size day of work. But a man who can induce a dozen other
man-machines to speed up and turn out a full day's work apiece doesn't
need to work his own hands. He serves his employer more valuably as an
overseer, foreman or supervisor.
¶ "A fat drummer" is such a common phrase that we would think our ears deceived us did anyone speak of a thin one. Approach five people and say "A traveling salesman," each will tell you that the picture this conjures in his imagination is of a fat, round, roly-poly, good natured, pretty clever man whom everybody likes.
For the fat men are "born salesmen" and they make up a large percentage
of that profession. Salesmanship requires mentality plus a pleasing
personality. The fat man qualifies easily in the matter of personality.
Then he makes little or much money from salesmanship, according to his
mental capacity.
¶ You will note that the conversation of fat people[Pg 62] is well sprinkled with funny stories. They enjoy a good joke better than any other type, for a reason which will become more and more apparent to you.
¶ That salesmen are popularly supposed to regale each customer with
yarns till he gasps for breath and to get his signature on the dotted
line while he is in that weakened condition, is more or less of a myth.
  And this good nature is so apparent that even
those who make sport of him are thinking to themselves: "I believe I'd
like that man."
¶ "Never hurry and never worry" are the unconscious standards underlying
many of the reactions of this type. If you will compile a list of the
habits of any fat person you will find that they are mostly the
outgrowths of one or both of these motives.[Pg 63]
¶ You would have a hard time getting an Alimentive to follow out any
protracted line of action calling for strenuosity, speed or high
tension. He will get as much done as the strenuous man when their
mentalities are equal - and often more. The fat person keeps going in a
straight line, with uniform and uninterrupted effort, and does not have
the blow-outs common to more fidgety people. But hard, fast labor is not
in his line.
¶ All forms of mental depression are foreign to fat people as long as
they are in normal health. We have known a fat husband and wife to be
ejected for rent and spend the evening at the movies laughing like
four-year-olds at Charlie Chaplin or a Mack Sennett comedy. You have
sometimes seen fat people whose financial condition was pretty serious
and wondered how they could be so cheerful.
¶ Fat people's habits, being built around their points of strength and weakness, are necessarily of two kinds - the desirable and the undesirable.[Pg 64]
The worst habits of this type are those inevitable to the ease-loving and the immature-minded.
Indolence is one of his most undesirable traits and costs the Alimentive dear.
In this country where energy, push and lightning-like efficiency are at a premium only the fat man of brains can hope to keep up.
The inertia caused by his digestive processes is so great that it is
almost insurmountable. The heavy, lazy feeling you have after a large
meal is with the fat man interminably because his organism is constantly
in the process of digesting large amounts of food.
¶ Love of comfort - especially such things as warm rooms and soft beds - is so deeply imbedded in the fiber of this type that he has ever to face a fight with himself which the rest of us do not encounter. This sometimes leads the excessively corpulent person to relax into laziness and slovenliness. An obese individual sometimes surprises us, however, by his ambition and immaculateness.

His worst faults wreak upon him far greater penalties than fall upon
those who associate with him, something that can not be said of the
faults of some other types.
¶ Simple, natural music is a favorite with fat people. Love songs, rollicking tunes and those full of melody are most popular with them.
They like ragtime, jazz and music with a swing to it. Music the world
over is most popular with fat races.
When the Alimentive is combined with some other type he will also enjoy
other kinds of music but the pure Alimentive cares most for primal tunes
and melodies.
¶ A pretty-girl show makes a hit with fat women as well as with fat men.
 Drop into a theater the next night where a tragedy is being
enacted and see how few fat ones are there.
¶ Fat people enjoy helping out the players, if the opportunity offers. All show people know this.
When one of those tricks is to be played from the foot-lights upon a member of the audience the girl who does it is always careful to select that circular gentleman down front. Let her try to mix up confetti or a toy balloon with a tall skinny man and the police would get a hurry call!
When we describe the bony type you will note how very different he is
from our friend the fat man.[Pg 67]
¶ "The fat man's theater" would be a fitting name for the movie houses of the country.  The movies cover in one evening so many different kinds of human interests - news, cartoons, features and comedy - that every type finds upon the screen something to interest him.
But if you will do what we have done - stand at the doorway of the
leading movie theaters of your city any evening and keep a record of the
types that enter you will find the plump are as numerous as all the
others combined.
¶ The reason for this is plain to all who are acquainted with Human Analysis: the fat man wants everything the easiest possible way and the movie fulfils this requirement more fully than any other theatrical entertainment. He can drop in when he feels like it and there is no waiting for the show to start, for one thing.
This is a decided advantage to him, for fat people do not like to depend
upon themselves for entertainment.[Pg 68]
¶ The first stage in biological evolution was the stage in which the alimentary apparatus was developed. To assimilate nutriment was the first function of all life and is so still, since it is the principal requirement for self-preservation.
Being the first and most elemental of our five physiological systems the Alimentive - when it overtops the others - produces a more elemental, infantile nature. The pure Alimentive has rightly been called "the baby of the race." This accounts for many of the characteristics of the extremely fat person, including the fact that it is difficult for him to amuse himself.
He of all types likes most to be amused and very simple toys and
activities are sufficient to do it.
¶ A serious drama or "problem play" usually bores him but he seldom misses a circus.
The fat person expresses his immaturity also in that he likes to be petted, made over and looked after.
¶ Like the infant he demands food first.  The next demand on[Pg 69] his list is sleep, another characteristic of the immature.
 Next to sleep he demands
warm clothing in winter and steam heat when the wintry winds blow.
¶ If it were not for the exertion required in getting to and from the
beaches, dressing and undressing, and the momentary coldness of the
water, many more Alimentives would go to the beaches in Summer than do.
¶ Anything, to be popular with the Alimentive, must be easy to get, easy
to do, easy to get away from, easy to drop if he feels like it. Anything
requiring the expenditure of great energy, even though it promises
pleasure when achieved, is usually passed over by the fat people.
¶ "Let George do it" is another bit of slang invented by this type. He
seldom does anything he[Pg 70] really hates to do. He is so likable he either
induces you to let him out of it or gets somebody to do it for him. He
just naturally avoids everything that is intense, difficult or
strenuous.
¶ If an unpleasant situation of a personal or social nature arises - a quarrel, a misunderstanding or any kind of disagreement - the fat man will try to get himself out of it without a discussion.
Except when they have square faces (in which case they are not pure
Alimentives), extremely fat people do not mix up in neighborhood,
family, church, club or political quarrels. It is too much trouble, for
one thing, and for another it is opposed to his peaceable, untensed
nature.
¶ The fat man has his eye on personal advantages and promotions and he knows that quarrels are expensive, not alone in the chances they lose him, but in nerve force and peace of mind.
The fat man knows instinctively that peace times are the most profitable
times and though he is not for "peace at any price" so far as the
country is concerned, he certainly is much inclined that way[Pg 71] where he
is personally concerned. You will be amused to notice how this
peace-loving quality increases as one's weight increases. The more fat
any individual is the more is he inclined to get what he wants without
hostility.
¶ The favorite "good time" of the Alimentive is one where there are
plenty of refreshments. A dinner invitation always makes a hit with him,
but beware that you do not lure a fat person into your home and give him
a tea-with-lemon wisp where he expected a full meal!
¶ Substantial viands can be served to him any hour of the day or night with the certainty of pleasing him. He loves a banquet, provided he is not expected to make a speech. The fat man has a harder time than any other listening to long speeches.
The fashion of trying to mix the two most opposite extremes - food and
ideas - and expecting them to go down, was due to our misunderstanding of
the real nature of human beings. It is rapidly going out, as must every
fashion which fails to take the human instincts into account.[Pg 72]
¶ No prizes lure a fat man into strenuous physical exercise or violent sports. Although we have witnessed numerous state, national and international tennis, polo, rowing, sprinting, hurdling and swimming contests, we have seen not one player who was fat enough to be included in the pure Alimentive type.
The grand-stands, bleachers and touring cars at these contests contained a generous number of fat people, but their conversation indicated that they were present more from personal interest in some contestant than in the game itself.
The nearest a fat man usually comes to taking strenuous exercise is to
drive in an open car. The more easeful that car the better he likes it.
He avoids long walks as he would the plague, and catches a street car
for a two-block trip.
¶ Due to his immaturity, the fat person gives little thought to anything save those things which affect him personally.
The calm exterior, unruffled countenance and air of deliberation he sometimes wears, and which have[Pg 73] occasionally passed for "judicial" qualities, are largely the results of the fact that the Alimentive refuses to get stirred up over anything that does not concern him personally.
This personal element will be found to dominate the activities,
conversation and interests of the Alimentive. For him to like a thing or
buy a thing it must come pretty near being something he can eat, wear,
live in or otherwise personally enjoy. He confines himself to the
concrete and tangible. But most of all he confines himself to things out
of which he gets something for himself.
¶ The fat man is no reader but when he does read it is nearly always
something funny, simple or sentimental. In newspapers he reads the
"funnies." Magazine stories, if short and full of sentiment, attract
him. He seldom reads an editorial and is not a book worm. The newspaper
furnishes practically all of the fat man's reading. He seldom owns a
library unless he is very rich, and then it is usually for "show."
¶ In making the investigations for this course, we interviewed many
clerks in the bookstores of leading[Pg 74] cities throughout the United
States. Without exception they stated that few extremely fat people
patronized them. "I have been in this store seventeen years and I have
never sold a book to a two hundred and fifty pounder," one dealer told
us. All this is due to the fact with which we started this chapter - that
the fat man is built around his stomach - and stomachs do not read!
¶ The fat man has the child's natural innocence and ignorance of subtle
and elusive things. He has the same interest in things and people as
does the child; the child's indifference to books, lectures, schools and
everything abstract.
¶ "I believe I could digest nails!" exclaimed a fat friend of ours recently. This perfect nutritive system constitutes the greatest physical superiority of the Alimentive. So highly developed is his whole stomach department that everything "agrees" with him. And everything tends to make him fat.
As Irvin Cobb recently said: "It isn't true that one can't have his cake
and eat it, too, for the fat man eats his and keeps it - all."[Pg 75]
¶ A tendency to over-eat results naturally from the highly developed eating and digesting system of this type but this in turn overtaxes all the vital organs, as stated before.
The pure Alimentive and the alimentively-inclined should learn their
normal weight and then keep within it if they desire long lives.
¶ Sweetness of disposition is one of the most valuable of all human
characteristics. Fat people possess it more often and more unchangingly
than any other type. Other social assets of this type are amenableness,
affability, hospitality and approachableness.
¶ Gaining his ends by flattery, cajolery, and various more or less
innocent little deceptions are the only social handicaps of this type.
¶ His unfailing optimism is the most marked emotional quality of this type. Nothing can be so dark that the fat person doesn't find a silver edge[Pg 76] somewhere. So in disaster we always send for our fat friends. In the presence of an amply-proportioned individual everything looks brighter. Hope springs eternal in human breasts but the springs are stronger in the plump folks than in the rest of us.
Money spending is also a marked feature of the fat man. His emotions are
out-going, never "in-growing."  These, as you
will note, are the natural reactions of childhood, from which he never
fully emerges.
¶ The ability to make people like him is the greatest business and
professional asset of this type, and one every other type might well
emulate. One average-minded fat man near the door of a business
establishment will make more customers in a month by his geniality,
joviality and sociableness than a dozen brilliant thinkers will in a
year. Every business that deals directly with the public should have at
least one fat person in it.[Pg 77]
¶ A habit of evading responsibility and of "getting out from under"
constitutes the inclination most harmful to the business or professional
ambitions of this type. Again it is the child in him trying to escape
the task set for it and at the same time to avoid punishment.
¶ Love of home is a distinguishing domestic trait of all fat people. The fat man's provision for his family is usually as complete as his circumstances will permit and he often stretches it a point.
As parents fat men and women are almost too easy-going for their own
future happiness, for they "spoil" their children. But they are more
loved by their children than any other type. Being so nearly children
themselves they make equals of their children, enter into their games
and live their lives with them.
¶ Dependence on others, the tendency of allowing one's self to be
supported by brothers or sisters or wife, is the chief domestic weakness
of fat people. They should begin early in life to depend upon
them[Pg 78]selves and make it a practice to carry their share of family
responsibilities.
¶ Developing more of his mental powers with a view to using his head to
lessen the manual work he so dislikes, and cultivating an interest in
the more mature side of the world in which he lives should be two of the
aims of all extremely fat people.
¶ "Letting down," soft snaps and temptations to evade responsibility
should be avoided by the fat. Elbert Hubbard said, "Blessed is the man
who is not looking for a soft snap, for he is the only one who shall
find it." This explains why the fat man, unless brainy, seldom lands
one.
¶ Optimism, hospitality and harmony are the strongest points in the fat man's nature. Upon them many a man has built a successful life. Without them no individual of any type can hope to be happy.
His popularity and all-around compatibility give the fat man advantages
over other types which fairly compensate for the weak cogs in his
machinery.[Pg 79]
¶ Self-indulgence of all kinds, over-eating, over-sleeping, under-exercising and the evasion of responsibilities are the weakest points of this type. Despite his many strong points his life is often wrecked on these rocks. He so constantly tends to taking the easy way out. Day by day he gives up chances for ultimate success for the baubles of immediate ease.
He is the most likable of all the types but his indolence sometimes
strains even the love of his family to the breaking point.
¶ Feed him, give him comfortable chairs - the largest you have - and don't drag him into long discussions of any kind.
And whatever you do, don't tell him your troubles!
Don't walk him any more than is absolutely necessary. Let him go home early if he starts. He enjoys his sleep and doesn't like to have it interfered with.
¶ Make your conversation deal with concrete per[Pg 80]sonal things and events.
Stay away from highbrow subjects. The best places to eat and the best
shows of the week are safe subjects to introduce when with very fat
people.
¶ Don't give him hard manual tasks. If you want this kind of work done get some one other than an extremely fat man to do it.
Give your fat employee a chance to deal with people in a not-too-serious
way, but hold him strictly to the keeping of his records, reports and
working hours.  Start out by letting him know you expect the
delivery of just what he promises. Don't let him "jolly" you into
relinquishing what is rightfully yours. And keep in mind always that the
fat person is usually good at heart.
Remember, the chief distinguishing
marks of the Alimentive in the order
of their importance are ROUNDED
OUTLINES, IMMATURE FEATURES
and DIMPLED
HANDS. A person
who has these is largely of the Alimentive
type, no
matter what other types
may be included in his makeup.
ndividuals in whom the circulatory system (heart, arteries and blood vessels) and the respiratory system (lungs, nose and chest) are more highly developed than any other systems, have been named the Thoracics.
¶ This name comes from the fact that the heart and lungs (which
constitute the most important organs of these two closely-allied
systems) are housed in the thorax - that little room made by your ribs
for the protection of these vital organs.
¶ A general elasticity of structure, a suggestion of sinews and physical
resilience characterizes this type.
¶ What is known as a "red face," when accompanied by a high chest, always signifies large thoracic tendencies. The high color which in an adult[Pg 84] comes and goes is a sure indication of a well developed circulatory system, since high color is caused by the rapid pumping of blood to the tiny blood vessels of the face.
People with little blood, weak hearts or deficient circulation are not
florid and must be much overheated or excited to show vivid color in
their cheeks.
¶ On the other hand, the slightest displeasure, enjoyment, surprise or
exertion brings the blood rushing to the face and neck of him who has a
large, well-developed blood-system. How many times you have heard such a
one say: "I am so embarrassed! I flush at every little thing!
¶ The largest part of this man's body is around the chest. (See Chart 3)
His chest is high for the reason that he has larger lungs than the
average.
¶ The man of unusual chest-expansion has one great physical asset. The
person who breathes[Pg 85] deeply has a decided advantage over the man who
breathes deficiently. The lungs form the bellows or air-supply for the
body's engine, the heart, and with a deficient supply of air the heart
does deficient work. Efficient breathing is easy only to the man of
large lungs, and only the high chested have large lungs.
¶ A long waist is another thoracic sign, for it is a natural result of the extra house-room required by the large lungs and heart. It is easily detected in both men and women. (See Chart 3)
If you are a close observer you have noticed that some people appear to
have a waist line much lower than others; that the belt line dividing
the upper part of the body from the lower is proportionately much nearer
the floor in some than in others of the same height.
¶ The "straight-up-and-down" lines of today's woman and the slimpsy shoulder-to-heel garments she wears have obliterated her waistline, but you will recall how differently the old "wasp waist" fashions of a score of years ago betrayed the secrets of the short and long waist.[Pg 86]
The eighteen-inch belt, of which we were so falsely proud in 1900, told
unmistakable facts about milady's thoracic development.
¶ As the tell-tale belt disappeared from woman's wardrobe it appeared in
man's, and now betrays the location of his waist with an exactness of
which the old-fashioned suspenders were never guilty.
¶ If you are a man and have difficulty in getting ready-made coats long enough for you this is certain proof that you have decided thoracic tendencies. If you are a woman who has to forego many a pretty gown because it is not long enough in the waist, the same is true of you.
In women this long waist and high chest give the appearance of small
hips and of shoulders a little broader than the average; in men it gives
that straight, soldier-like bearing which makes this type of man admired
and gazed after as he strides down the street.
¶ A high head is a significant characteristic of the[Pg 87] typical Thoracic. (See Chart 4) The Anglo-Saxons tend to have this head and, more than any other races, exhibit thoracic qualities as racial characteristics.
This is considered the handsomest head known. Certainly it lends the
appearance of nobility and intelligence. It is not wide, looked at from
the front or back, but inclines to be slightly narrower for its height
than the Alimentive head.
¶ A face widest through the cheek bones and tapering slightly up the
sides of the forehead and downward to the jaw bones is the face of the
pure Thoracic. (See Chart 4) This must not be mistaken for the pointed
chin nor the pointed head, but is merely a sloping of the face upward
and downward from the cheek bones as a result of the unusual width of
the nose section. (See Chart 4)
¶ The nose section is also high and wide because the typical Thoracic
has a nose that is well developed. This is shown not only by its length
but by its high bridge.
[Pg 88]
The cause for the width and length of this section[Pg 89] is obvious. The
nose constitutes the entrance and exit departments of the breathing
system. Large lung capacity necessitates a large chamber for the intake
and expulsion of air.
¶ Whenever you see a man whose face is wide through the cheek bones - with a long, high-bridged open-nostrilled nose - you see a man of good lung capacity and of quick physical energy. When you see any one with pinched nostrils, a face that is narrow through the cheek bones and a low or "sway-back" nose, you see a man whose lung capacity is deficient. Such a person invariably expends his physical energy more slowly.
Freckles, being due to the same causes as red hair and high color, are
further indications of thoracic tendencies, though you may belong to
this type with or without them.
¶ The pointed hand is the hand of the pure Thoracic. (See Chart 4) Note the extreme length of the second finger and the pointed effect of this hand when all the fingers are laid together. Any person with a pointed hand such as this has good[Pg 90] thoracic development whether it occupies first place in his makeup or not.
The fingers of the Thoracic are also inclined to be more thin-skinned than those of other types.
One may be predominantly Thoracic without these elements but they are
indications of the extreme Thoracic type. Naturally the hand of the
extreme Thoracic is more pink than the average.
¶ The Thoracic tends to have more narrow, high-arched feet than other
types. As a result this type makes the majority of the beautifully shod.
¶ A hair-trigger nimbleness goes with this type. He is always "poised ready to strike."
All Thoracics use their hands, arms, wrists, limbs and feet alertly and
energetically. They open doors, handle implements and all kinds of hand
instruments with little blundering. Also their movements are more
graceful than those of other types.
¶ "The springy step" must have been invented to describe the walk of the
Thoracic. No matter[Pg 91] how hurried, his walk has more grace than the walk
of other types. He does not stumble; and it is seldom that a Thoracic
steps on the train of his partner's gown.
¶ The way you sit tells a great deal about your nature. One of the first secrets it betrays is whether you are by nature graceful or ungainly.
Their excess of energy sometimes gives them the appearance of
"fidgeting," but it is an easy, graceful fidget and not as disturbing as
that of other types.
¶ Quick eyes and keen ears are characteristic of the Thoracics. The millions of stimuli - the sounds, sights and smells impinging every waking moment upon the human consciousness - affect him more quickly and more intensely than any other type. The acuteness of all our senses depends, to a far greater extent than we have hitherto supposed, upon proper heart and lung action.[Pg 92]
Take long, deep breaths for five minutes in the open air while walking rapidly enough to make your heart pound, and see how much keener your senses are at the end of that time.
The Thoracic is chronically in this condition because his heart and
lungs are going at top speed habitually and naturally all his life.
¶ Because bodily temperature varies according to the amount of blood and
the rapidity of its circulation, this type is always warmer than others.
He is extremely susceptible to heat, suffers keenly in warm rooms or
warm weather and wears fewer wraps in winter. The majority of bathers at
the beaches in summer are largely of this type.
¶ Nerves as taut as a violin string - due to his acute physical senses
and his thin, sensitive skin - plus his instantaneous quickness make the
Thoracic what is known as "high-strung."
¶ Because he is keyed to high C by nature, the Thoracic has more of that quality called temperament than any other type.[Pg 93]
The wag who said that "temperament was mostly temper" might have
reversed it and still have been right. For temper is largely a matter of
temperament. Since the Thoracics have more "temperament" it follows
naturally that they have more temper, or rather that they show it
oftener, just as they show their delightful qualities oftener.
¶ This type, consciously and unconsciously, is a "continuous
performance." He is showing you something of himself every moment and if
you are interested in human nature, as your reading of this book
suggests, you are going to find him a fascinating subject. He is
expressing his feelings with more or less abandon all the time and he is
likely to express as many as a dozen different ones in as many moments.
¶ "Flying off the handle," and "going up in the air" are phrases originally inspired by our dear, delightful friends, the Thoracics.
Other types do these more or less temperamental things but they do not
do them as frequently nor on as short notice as this type.[Pg 94]
¶ A fiery nature is part and parcel of the Thoracic's makeup. But did
you ever see a fiery-natured man who didn't have lots of warm friends!
It is the grouch - in whom the fire starts slowly and smoulders
indefinitely - that nobody likes. But the man who flares up, flames for a
moment and is calm the next never lacks for companions or devotees.
¶ One may belong to the Thoracic type whether his hair is blonde or brunette or any of the shades between, but it is an interesting fact that most of the red-haired are largely of this type. "He didn't have red hair for nothing" is a famous phrase that has been applied to the red-haired, quick-tempered Thoracic for generations.
You will be interested to note that this high color and high chest are distinctly noticeable in most of the red-haired people you know - certain proof that they approximate this type.
As you walk down the street tomorrow look at the people ahead of you and
when you find a "red-head" notice how much more red his neck is than[Pg 95]
the necks of the people walking beside him. This flushed skin almost
always accompanies red hair, showing that most red-haired people belong
to this type.
¶ The red-haired man's temper usually expends itself instantly. His red-hot fieriness is over in a moment. But for every enemy he has two friends - friends who like his flame, even though in constant danger from it themselves.
Whereas the Alimentive avoids you if he disagrees with you, the Thoracic
likes to tell you in a few hot words just what he thinks of you. But the
chances are that he will be so completely over it by lunch time that he
will invite you out with him.
¶ To be admired and a wee bit envied are desires dear to the heart of
this type. Everybody, to a greater or lesser degree, desires these
things, but to no other type do they mean so much as to this one. We
know this because no other type, in any such numbers, takes the trouble
or makes the sacrifices necessary to bring them about.[Pg 96]
¶ The ego of every individual craves approval but the majority of the other types craves something else more - the particular something in each case depending upon the type to which the individual belongs.
You can always tell what any individual WANTS MOST by what he DOES. The
man who thinks he wants a thing or wishes he wanted it talks about
getting it, envies those who have it and plans to start doing
something about it. But the man who really WANTS a thing GOES AFTER it,
sacrifices his leisure, his pleasures and sometimes love itself - and
GETS it.
¶ The lime-light appeals more to this type than to others because it goes further toward gratifying his desire for approbation. So while other men and women are dreaming of fame the Thoracic practises, ploughs and pleads his way to it.
The personal adulation of friends and of the multitude is the breath of
life to him. Extremes of this type consider no self-denial too great a
price to pay for it.[Pg 97]
¶ The stage in all its forms is as natural a field to the Thoracic as salesmanship is to the Alimentive. The pleas of fond papas and fearsome mamas are usually ineffective with this type of boy or girl when he sets his heart on a career before the foot-lights or in the movies.
Whether they achieve it or not will depend on other, and chiefly mental,
traits in each individual's makeup, but the yearning for it in some form
is always there. So the managers' waiting rooms are always crowded with
people of this type. It is this intensity of desire which has goaded and
inspired most stage artists on to success in their chosen fields.
¶ To be able to put one's self in the role of another, to feel as he feels; to be so keenly sensitive to his situation and psychology that one almost becomes that person for the time being, is the heart and soul of acting.
The Thoracic has this sensitiveness naturally. After long study and
acquaintance you may be able to put yourself in the place of a few
friends. The Thoracic does this instantly and automatically.[Pg 98]
¶ Those who have succeeded to fame in any given line are wont to proclaim, "Hard work is the secret of success," and to take great credit unto themselves for the labor they have expended on their own.
It is true of course that all success entails hard work. But the man or
woman sufficiently gifted to rise to the heights gets from that gift
such a strong inward urge towards its expression that what he does in
that direction is not work to him. The long hours, concentration and
study devoted to it are more pleasurable than painful to him. He chooses
such activities voluntarily.
¶ Nothing can rightly be called work which one does out of sheer
preference. Work never made an actress and work never made a singer
where innate talent for these arts was lacking. Nature, the true maker
of every famous name, bestows ninety per cent and man, if he hustles,
can provide the other very necessary ten. But his sense of humor if not
his sense of justice should be sufficient to prevent his trying to rob
the Almighty of His due.[Pg 99]
¶ Every individual who is not feeble-minded can be a success at
something in this big world. Every normal-minded individual is able to
create, invent, improve, organize, build or market some of the myriads
of things the world is crying for. But he will succeed at only those
things in which his physiological and psychological mechanisms perform
their functions easily and naturally.
¶ Man is, by inclination, very little of a worker. He is, first, a wanter - a bundle of instincts; second, a feeler - a bundle of emotions; last and least, he is a thinker. What real work he does is done not because he likes it but because it serves one of these first two bundles of instincts.
When the desire for leisure is stronger than the other urges, leisure
wins. But in all ambitious men and women the desire for other things
outweighs the leisure-urge.
¶ Now what is it that causes some to have ambition and others to lack it?
Your ambitions take the form determined by your[Pg 100] predominating physiological system. For instance, in every great singer the Thoracic has been present either as the first or second element.
The effect of the physical upon our talents is no more marked anywhere than here. For it is his unusual lung power, his high chest, the sounding boards in his nose section and his superior vocal cords that make the real foundation of every singer's fame. These physiological conditions are found in extreme degree only in persons of thoracic tendencies.
It was the great lung-power of Caruso that made him a great singer. It was his remarkable heart-power that brought him through an illness in February, 1921, when every newspaper in the world carried on its front page the positive statement that he could not live another day. That he lived for six months afterward was due chiefly to his remarkable heart.
The nature resulting from a large heart and large lungs is one
distinctly different from all others - in short, the Thoracic nature.
¶ The best dressed man and the best dressed woman in your town belong
predominantly to this[Pg 101] type. This is no accident. The Thoracics, being
possessed of acute eye senses, are more sensitive to color and line than
any other type. These are the foundations of "style" and artistic
grooming.
¶ Being desirous of the approval of others and realizing that though clothes do not make the man they can unmake him, this type looks to his laurels on this point.
Because clothes determine the first impressions we make upon strangers and because that impression is difficult to change, clothes are of vast importance in this maze of human relationships.
The Thoracic is more sensitive to the attitude of others because their
attitude is more vital to his self-expression. He senses from childhood
the bearing that clothes have for or against him in the opinion of
others and how they can aid him to express his personality.
¶ The Thoracic therefore often becomes "the glass of fashion and the mold of form." His consciousness of himself is so keen that, even when alone, he prefers those things in dress which are at once fine, fancy and fashionable.[Pg 102]
Some types are indifferent to clothes, some ignorant of clothes and some
defiant in their clothes but the Thoracic always has a keen sense of
fitness in the matter of apparel.
¶ The distinctive dresser is one who essays the extremely fashionable,
the "last moment" touch. He is always a step or two ahead of the times.
His ties, handbags, handkerchiefs and stick pins are "up to the minute."
Such a man or woman invariably has a large thoracic development and is
well repaid by the public for his pains.
¶ The public looks more eagerly than we suppose to changes in styles and
fads. It gives, in spite of itself, instantaneous admiration of a sort
to those who follow the dictates of fashion. This being one of the
quickest roads to adulation, it is often utilized by this type.
¶ The latest thing in coiffures is always known by the Thoracic woman. And because she is, more often than any other type, a beautiful woman she[Pg 103] can wear her hair in almost any style and find it becoming.
So when puffs were the thing this type of woman not only wore puffs but
the most extreme and numerous puffs. When the "sticking-to-the-face"
style was in vogue she bought much bandoline and essayed the sleekest
and shiniest head of all. When the ear-bun raged she changed those same
paper-like curls over night into veritable young sofa cushions.
¶ With intent to keep the spotlight on himself the Thoracic is always on
dress parade.  He is seldom "self-conscious," in the sense of
being timid. When he does happen to be timid he suffers, by reason of
his greater desire for approval, more acutely than any other type.
¶ Instantaneous reaction to stimuli - with all the reflex actions resulting therefrom - constitutes the keynote of this type. This makes an individual who is physiologically and psychologically affectable.[Pg 104]
Because life is full of all kinds of stimuli, acting during every waking
moment upon every sense in the organism, any person who is high strung
finds himself in the midst of what might be called "nerve-bedlam."
¶ Because of this same highly sensitized makeup the Thoracic gets more
sensations out of every incident than the rest of us do. He experiences
more joy in the space of a lifetime but also more disappointment.
¶ For the same reason that the violin vibrates to a greater number of
sounds than the organ, the Thoracic is a more vibrant individual than
others. He is impelled to an expressiveness of voice, manner and action
that often looks like pretence to less impulsive people. In other types
it would be, but to the Thoracic it is so natural and normal that he is
often much surprised to hear that he has the reputation of being
"affected."
¶ This lightning-like liveliness of face, body and[Pg 105] voice, his quick
replies and instantaneous reactions to everything also cause him to be
called "flighty."
¶ We are prone to judge every one by ourselves.
Usually such a man's brain is not rattled at all; it is working, as all brains do in response to the messages reaching it, via the telegraph wires of the five senses.
In the Thoracic these wires happen to be more taut than in the other types. He gets sensations from sights, sounds, tastes, touches and smells much more quickly than the rest of us do. These messages are sent to the brain more rapidly and, since sensation is responsible for much of our thinking, this man's brain thinks a little more speedily than that of other types.
It does not necessarily think any better. Often it does need slowing down. But compared to the thought-power of some of the other types the Thoracic's speed makes up for much of his carelessness. He makes more mistakes in judgment[Pg 106] than other types but can "right-about-face" so quickly he usually remedies them while other types are still trying to decide when to start.
To hold himself back is the hardest lesson for this type to learn.
¶ This tendency to let himself go brings the Thoracic a great deal of unhappiness and failure. He plunges so quickly that he often fails to take into consideration the various elements of the situation.
His physical senses tell him a thing should be done and rush him
headlong into actions that he knows are ill-advised the moment he has
time to think them over. In turning around and righting his mistakes he
often hears himself called "changeable" and "vacillating."
¶ In this, as in other things, we have a tendency toward smugness, shortsightedness and egotism. The man who makes but one mistake a year because he makes but two decisions is wrong fifty per cent of the time. Yet he self-satisfiedly considers himself superior to the Thoracic because he[Pg 107] has caught the latter in six "poor deals within six months." At the rate the average Thoracic acts this would be about one mistake in a thousand - a much "better batting average" than the other man's.
But because the confidence of others in our stability is of prime
importance to us all, this type or any one inclined to definite thoracic
tendencies should take pains to prevent this impression from settling
into the minds of his friends.
¶ The greatest reason for striving toward stability in action and more
slowness in decision, however, is for his own future's sake. The man who
is constantly making decisions and being compelled to alter them gets
nowhere. He may have the best engine and the finest car in the world but
if he runs first down this by-path, and then that, he will make little
progress on the main highway.
¶ An aim, a definite goal is essential to the progress of any
individual. It should be made with care and in keeping with one's
personality, talents, training, education, environment and experience,[Pg 108]
and having been made should be adhered to with the determination which
does not permit little things to interfere with it.
¶ The big problem of individual success is the problem of eliminating
non-essentials - of "hewing to the line, letting the chips fall where
they may." Most of the things that steal your time, strength, money and
energy are nothing but chips. If you pay too much attention to them you
will never hew out anything worth while.
¶ If you are a Thoracic don't regret the fact that you are not a one-decision-a-year man, but try to make fewer and better decisions.
Your quickness, if called into counsel, will enable you to see from what instincts your mistakes habitually arise and the direction in which most of them have pointed. And you will see this with so much greater dispatch than the average person that you will lose little time.
You should begin today to analyze your most common errors in judgment
that you may guard against their recurrence.[Pg 109]
¶ Even when apparently composed the Thoracic is always a wee bit thrilled. Everything he sees, hears, touches, tastes or smells gives him such keen sensations that he lives momentarily in some kind of adventure.
He languishes in an unchanging environment and finds monotony almost
unbearable.
¶ "Never two minutes the same" fitly describes this type. He passes
rapidly from one vivid sensation to another and expresses each one so
completely that he is soon ready for the next. He has fewer complexes
than any other type because he does not inhibit as much.
¶ The "lid" is always off of the Thoracic. This being the case he
suffers little from "mental congestion" though he sometimes pays a high
price for his self-expression.
¶ Most of us are much more interesting than the world suspects. But the world is not made up of[Pg 110] mind readers. We keep our most interesting thoughts and the most interesting side of ourselves hidden away. Even your dearest friends are seldom given a peep into the actual You. And this despite the fact that we all recognize this as a deficiency in others.
We bottle up ourselves and defy the world's cork-screws - all save the
Thoracic. He allows his associates to see much of what is passing in his
mind all the time. Because we are all interested in the real individual
and not in masks this type usually is much sought after.
¶ The Thoracic does not by preference cover up; he does not by preference secrete; he does not, except when necessary, keep his plans and ways dark. He is likely to tell not only his family but his newest acquaintances just what he is planning to do and how he expects to do it.
The naturally secretive person who vaguely refers to "a certain party"
when he has occasion to speak of another is the exact opposite of this
type.
¶ We are all interested in the little comings and[Pg 111] goings of our
friends. Upon this fact every magazine and newspaper builds its "human
interest" stories. We may be indifferent to what the President of the
United States is doing about international relations but what he had for
breakfast is mighty interesting. Few people read inaugural addresses,
significant though they often are to the world and to the reader
himself. But if the President would write ten volumes on "Just How I
Spend My Sundays," it would be a "best seller."
¶ Personal experiences, personal secrets and personal preferences are
subjects we are all interested in. These are the very things with which
the Thoracic regales his friends and about which he is more frank and
outspoken than any other type. He makes many friends by his obvious
openness and his capacity for seeing the interesting details which
others overlook.
¶ Colorful, vivid words and phrases come easily to the tongue of this
type for he sees the unusual, the fascinating, in everything. Since any
one can make a thing interesting to others if he is really[Pg 112] interested
in it himself, the Thoracic makes others see and feel what he describes.
He is therefore known as the most charming conversationalist.
¶ The most beautiful voices belong to people who are largely of this type. This is due, as we have said before, to physiological causes. The high chest, sensitive vocal cords, capacious sounding boards in the nose and roof of the mouth all tend to give the voice of the Thoracic many nuances and accents never found in other types.
His pleasing voice plus the vividness of his expressions and his lack of
reticence in giving the intimate and interesting details are other
traits which help to make the Thoracic a lively companion.
¶ The most beloved people in the world are the spontaneous. We lead such
drab lives ourselves and keep back so much, we like to see a little
Niagara of human emotion occasionally. The Thoracic feels everything
keenly. Life's experiences make vivid records on the sensitive plate of
his mind. He puts them on the Victrola that is himself and proceeds to
run them off for your entertainment.[Pg 113]
¶ "A constant stream of talk" must have been first said in describing this type. For while others are carefully guarding their real feelings and thoughts the Thoracic goes merrily on relieving himself of his.
More sedate and somber types call the Thoracics "bubblers" or "spouters"
just for this reason.
¶ "That person's talk gets on my nerves," is a remark often made by one
of the staid, stiff types concerning the seldom silent, extremely florid
individual. So natural is this to the Thoracic that he is entirely
unconscious of the wearing effect he has on other people.
¶ Seeing the funny side of everything is a capacity which comes more naturally to this type than to others. This is due to the psychological fact that nothing is truly humorous save what is slightly "out of plumb."
Real humor lies in detecting and describing that intangible quirk. No
type has the sensitiveness essential to this in any such degree as the
Thoracic.[Pg 114] Individuals of other types sometimes possess a keen sense of
humor. This trait is not confined to the Thoracic. But it is a
significant fact that almost every humorist of note has had this type as
the first or second element in his makeup.
¶ "He is a skyrocket," or "she is a firefly," are phrases often used to describe that vivacious individual whose adeptness at repartee puts the rest of the crowd in the background.  They never belong predominately to the fourth type.
The next time you find such a person note how his eyes flash, how his color comes and goes and the many indescribable gradations of voice which make him the center of things.
"He is always shooting sparks," said a man recently in describing a
florid, high-chested friend.
¶ His "line" may not interest you but the Thoracic himself is usually interesting. He is an actual curiosity to the quiet, inexpressive people who never can fathom how he manages to talk so frankly and so fast.[Pg 115]
Such a person is seldom dull. He is everything from a condiment to a
cocktail and has the same effect on the average group of more or less
drab personalities.
¶ "Glad one moment and sad the next" is the way the ticker would read if
it could make a record of the inner feelings of the average Thoracic.
These feelings often come and go without his having the least notion of
what causes them. Ordinarily these unaccountable moods are due to
sensations reaching his subconscious mind, of which no cognizance is
taken by his conscious processes.
¶ This ability to "get" things, to respond quickly with his physical
reactions while devoting his mental ones to something else, has obtained
for this type the reputation of possessing more "intuition" than others.
¶ That there is no such thing as intuition in the old sense of getting a "hunch" from the outside is now agreed by psychologists. The thing we have[Pg 116] called intuition, they maintain, is not due to irregular or supernatural causes but to our own normal natural mental processes.
The impression that he gets this knowledge or suspicion from the outside
is due, the scientists say, to the fact that his thinking has proceeded
at such lightning-like speed that he was unable to watch the wheels go
round. The only thing of which he is conscious is the final result or
sum at the bottom of the column called his "hunch." He is not aware of
the addition and subtraction which his mind went through to get it for
him.
¶ "Off like a shot" is a term often applied to the Thoracic. He is the
most easily excited of all types but also the most easily calmed. He
recovers from every mood more quickly and more completely than other
types. Under the influence of emotion he often does things for which he
is sorry immediately afterward.
¶ This type usually does a thing quickly or not at all. He is a gun that
is always cocked. So he hits a great many things in the course of a[Pg 117]
lifetime and leads the most exciting existence of any type. Being able
to get thrills out of the most commonplace event because of seeing
elements in it which others overlook, he finds in everyday life more
novelty than others ever see.
¶ Romance and adventure always interest this type. He lives for thrills and novel reactions and usually spares no pains or money to get them. A very slangy but very expressive term used frequently by these people is, "I got a real kick out of that."
This craving for adventure, suspense and zest often lures this type into
speculation, gambling and various games of chance. The danger in flying,
deep-sea diving, auto-racing and similar fields has a strong appeal for
this type - so strong that practically every man or woman who follows
these professions is of this type.
¶ The Thoracic soon tires of the same suit, the same gown, the same
house, the same town and even the same girl. He wrings the utmost out of
each experience so quickly and so completely that he is forever on the
lookout for new worlds to conquer.[Pg 118] Past experiences are to him as so
many lemons out of which he has taken all the juice. He anticipates
those of the future as so many more to be utilized in the same way.
¶ We all like answers. We want to be assured that what we have said or done has registered. The Thoracic is always saying or doing something and can't understand why other people are so unresponsive. He is as responsive as a radio wire. Everything hits the mark with him and he lets you know it. So, naturally, he enjoys the same from others and considers those less expressive than himself stiff, formal or dull.
The kind of person the Thoracic likes best is one sufficiently like
himself to nod and smile and show that he fully understands but who will
not interrupt his stream of talk.
¶ The stolid, indifferent or cold are people the Thoracic comes very near disliking. Their evident self-complacency and immobility are things he does not understand at all and with which he has little patience.[Pg 119]
Such people seem to him to be cold, unfeeling, almost dead. So he steers
clear of them. It was surely a Thoracic who first called these people
"sticks." But the reason for their acting like sticks will be apparent
in another chapter.
¶ Whereas the Alimentive avoids people he does not care for, the Thoracic is inclined to betray his aversions. He occasionally delights to put people he dislikes at a disadvantage by his wit or satire. The stony individual who walks through life like an Ionian pillar is a complete mystery to the Thoracic; and the pillar returns the compliment. We do not like anything we do not understand and we seldom understand anything that differs decidedly from ourselves.
Thus we distrust and dislike foreigners, and to a greater or lesser extent other families, people from other sections of the country, etc. The Easterner and Westerner have a natural distrust of each other; and the Civil War is not the only reason for the incompatibility of Southerners and Northerners.
So it is with individuals. Those who differ too widely in type never
understand each other. They[Pg 120] have too little of the chief thing that
builds friendships - emotions in common.
¶ If you have once been a real friend of a Thoracic and a quarrel comes
between you, he may be ever so bitter and biting in the moment of his
anger but in most cases he will forgive you eventually.
¶ It is not as easy for other types to forgive; they often refrain from attempting a reconciliation. But the Thoracic's forgiveness is not only spontaneous but genuine.
The Alimentive bears no grudges because it is too much trouble. The
Thoracic finds it hard to maintain a grudge because he gets over it just
as he gets over everything else. His anger oozes away or he wakes up
some fine morning and finds, like the boy recovering from the
chickenpox, that he "simply hasn't it any more."
¶ Acute diseases are the ones chiefly affecting this type. Everything in his organism tends to suddenness and not to sameness.[Pg 121]
Just as he is inclined to get into and out of psychological experiences
quickly, so he is inclined to sudden illnesses and to sudden
recuperations. A Thoracic seldom has any kind of chronic ailment. If he
acquires a superabundance of avoirdupois he is in danger of apoplexy.
The combination of extreme Thoracic and extreme Alimentive tendencies is
the cause of this disease.
¶ Variety and novelty in food are much enjoyed by this type. The Alimentive likes lots of rich food but he is not so desirous of varieties or freak dishes. But the Thoracic specializes in them.
You can not mention any kind of strange new dish whose investigation won't appeal to some one in the crowd, and that person is always somewhat thoracic. It gives him another promise of "newness."
Foreign dishes of all kinds depend for their introduction into this
country almost entirely upon these florid patrons. According to the
statements of restauranteurs this type says, "I will try anything once."
Many-course dinners, if the food is good, are especially popular with
them.[Pg 122]
¶ Out-of-the-ordinary surroundings in which to dine are always welcome
to this type. The hangings, pictures, and furniture mean much to him.
Most people like music at meals but to the Thoracic it is almost
indispensable. He is so alive in every nerve, so keyed-up and has such
intense capacity for enjoyment of many things simultaneously that he
demands more than other types. An attentive waiter who ministers to
every movement and anticipates every wish is also a favorite with the
Thoracic when out for dinner.
¶ Colorful surroundings are more necessary to the Thoracic than to other types. The ever-changing fashions in house decorations are welcome innovations to him. He soon grows tired of a thing regardless of how much he liked it to begin with.
Take notice amongst your friends and you will see that the girl who
changes the furniture all around every few weeks is invariably of this
type. "It makes me feel that I have changed my location and takes the
place of a trip," explained one girl not long ago.[Pg 123]
¶ The exact color of hangings, wall-paper, interior decorations and accessories are matters of vital import to this type. Whereas the Alimentives demand comfort, the Thoracics ask for "something different," something that catches and holds the eye - that makes an instantaneous impression upon the onlooker and gives him one more thing by which to remember the personality of the one who lives there.
This type considers his room and home as a part of himself and takes the
pains with them which he bestows upon his clothes.
¶ Wealth to the Thoracic means unlimited opportunity for achieving the unusual in everything. His tastes are more extravagant than those of other types. Uncommon works of art are usually found in the homes of this type. The most extraordinary things from the most extraordinary places are especial preferences with him.
He carries out his desire for attention here as in everything else and
what he buys will serve that end directly or indirectly.[Pg 124]
¶ "Flare" aptly describes the quality which the pure Thoracic desires in all that touches him and his personality. It must have verve and "go" and distinctiveness. It must be "the latest" and "the thing."
He is the last type of all to submit to wearing last year's suit,
singing last year's songs, or driving in a last year's model.
¶ The Thoracic wants everything he wears, drives, lives in or owns to "get across," to make an impression. The fat man loves comfort above all else, but the florid man loves distinction.
He does not demand such easy-to-wear garments as the fat man. On the
contrary, he will undergo extreme discomfort if it gives him a
distinctive appearance. He wants his house to be elegant, the grounds
"different," the view unusual.
¶ Whereas the fat man when furnishing a home devotes his attention to
soft beds, steam heat and plenty of cushioned divans, the Thoracic
thinks[Pg 125] of the chandeliers, the unusual chairs, the pretty front
doorstep, the landscape gardening and the color schemes.
¶ When only well to do this type will be found to have carried out
furnishings and decorations with the taste worthy of much larger purses.
When merely well to do he wears the very best clothes he can possibly
afford, and often a good deal better. This type does not purpose to be
outwitted by life. He tries always to put up a good showing.
¶ The Thoracic is seldom poor. He has so much personality, ginger and go of the sort that is required in the world of today that he usually has a good position. He may not like the position. But in spite of the fact that he finds it harder to tolerate disagreeable things than any other type, he will endure it for he knows that the rewards he is after can not be had by the down-and-outer.
The natural and normal vanity of the Thoracic stands him in hand here
more than in almost any other place in life.[Pg 126]
¶ Behind every row of foot-lights you will find more people of this type than any other. The Alimentive manages the world but the Thoracic entertains it.
He comprises more of the dancers, actors, operatic stars and general entertainers than any other two types combined. In everything save acrobatics and oratory he holds the platform laurels.
As already pointed out, his adaptability, spontaneity and love of
approval are responsible for this.
¶ The Thoracic is the most fastidious of all the types. His thin skin
and sensitive nerves make him more conscious of roughness and
slovenliness than others. The result is that he is what is called "more
particular" about his person than are other types. The fat man often
wears an old pair of shoes long past their usefulness, but the florid
man thinks more of the impression he creates than of his own personal
comfort, and will wear the shiniest of patent leathers on the hottest
day if they are the best match for his suit.[Pg 127]
¶ Every kind of music is enjoyed by the pure Thoracic because he
experiences so many moods.
¶ Social affairs of an exclusive order where he wears his "best bib and tucker" and everybody else does the same, are amongst the favorite diversions of this type. He makes a favorable impression under such conditions and is well aware of it.
Other reasons for this preference are his brilliant conversational
powers, his charm and his enjoyment of other people and their
view-points. The Thoracic is also exceedingly fond of dancing.
¶ The average Thoracic enjoys vaudeville, Follies, revues, etc., because
they are full of quick changes of program. He enjoys, as does every
type, certain kinds of movies, but he constitutes no such percentage of
the movie-going audience as some other types.
¶ Books and stories that are romantic, adventurous, and different are
the favorites of this type. Detective stories are often in high favor
with him also.[Pg 128]
¶ The physical advantages of this type are his quick energy - based on his wonderful breathing system - and the rich, rapid-flowing blood, produced by his wonderful heart system.
He is noted for his ability to get "his second wind" and has remarkable
capacity for rising to sudden physical emergencies.
¶ A tendency to over-excitement and the consequent running down of his
batteries is a physical pitfall often fatal to this type.
¶ Hurdling, sprinting, tennis and all sports requiring short, intense
spurts of energy are the ones in which this type excels.
¶ Charm and responsiveness are the chief social assets of the Thoracic.
Inasmuch as these are the most valuable of all social traits, he has a
better natural start in human relationships than any other type.[Pg 129]
¶ Quick temper, his inflammable nature and appearances of vanity are his
greatest social liabilities. They stand between him and success many
times. He must learn to control them if he desires to reap the full
benefit of his remarkable assets.
¶ Instantaneous sympathy and the lack of poisonous inhibitions are the
outstanding emotional assets of this type.
¶ Impatience, mercurial emotions and the expenditure of too much of his
electricity in every little experience are the tendencies most to be
guarded against.
¶ That he is a "good mixer" and has the magnetism to interest and
attract others are his most valuable business traits.
¶ An appearance of flightiness and his tendency to hop from one subject
to another, stand in the way of the Thoracic's promotion many times.[Pg 130]
¶ The ability to entertain and please his own family and to give of
himself to them as freely as he gives himself to the world at large, is
one of the most lovable thoracic traits.
¶ The temperament and temper of this type constitute a real domestic
problem for those who live with them. But they are so forgiving
themselves that it is almost impossible to hold anything against them.
¶ The Thoracic should aim at making fewer decisions, at finishing what
he starts, and of wasting less energy in unnecessary words and motions.
¶ All situations, conditions and people who "Slip the belt off the
will," who tend to cut life up into bits by dissipation or
pleasure-seeking, should be avoided by this type because they aggravate
his own weaknesses in that direction.
¶ Personal ambition, adaptability and quick[Pg 131] physical energy are the
strongest points of the Thoracic.
¶ Too great excitability, irresponsibility and supersensitiveness, are
the weakest points of this type.
¶ Give him esthetic surroundings, encourage him to talk, and respond to
what he says. These are the certain methods for winning him in social
intercourse.
¶ Get his name on the dotted line NOW, or don't expect it. If he is an
employee let him come into direct contact with people, give his
personality a chance to get business for you, don't forget to praise him
when deserved, and don't pin him down to routine. This type succeeds
best in professions where his personal charm can be capitalized, and
does not belong in any strictly commercial business.[Pg 132]
Remember, the chief distinguishing
marks of the Thoracic in the order
of their importance, are FLUSHED
COMPLEXION, HIGH CHEST and
LONG WAIST.
Any person who has
these is largely of the Thoracic
type, no matter what
other types
may be included in his makeup.[Pg 133]
eople in whom the muscular system is
proportionately larger and more highly developed than any of their other
systems are Musculars. This system consists of the muscles of the
organism.
¶ The muscle-system of the human body is simply a co-ordinated, organized arrangement of layers of lean meat, of which every individual has a complete set.
An individual's muscles may be small, flabby, deficient in strength or so thin as to be almost imperceptible but they are always there - elementary in the infant, full grown in the adult and remnants in the aged. But they are so smoothly fitted together, so closely knitted and usually so[Pg 134] well covered that we seldom realize their complexity or importance.
In the pure Muscular type his muscles are firm and large. Such muscles
can not be disguised but seem to stand out all over him.
¶ Without them we would be helpless masses of fat and bone; we could not blink an eye nor lift a finger. Yet we are so accustomed to them that we rarely think of them and seldom give them credit for what they do.
Without their wonder-work to adjust the eyes we could not see; without their power the heart would cease to beat. We can not smile, sob, speak nor sing without using them. We would have no pianists, violinists, dancers, aviators, inventors or workers of any kind without them.
Everything we put together - from hooks and eyes to skyscrapers - is
planned by our brains but depends for its materialization upon the
muscles of the human body.
¶ Look at any individual and you will note one of these three conditions: that his bones seem to be[Pg 135] covered just by skin and sinews (which means that he belongs to the fourth type) or thickly padded with fat (in which case he is largely of the first type) or well upholstered with firm meat.
In the latter case he is largely Muscular, no matter what other types may be present in his makeup.
In a short time you will be able to tell, at a glance, whether the
padding on an individual is mostly fat or mostly muscle, because fat is
always round and soft while muscle is firm and definite.
¶ A general solidity of structure, as distinguished from the softness of the Alimentive and the resilience of the Thoracic, characterizes the Muscular.  Do the same to the Muscular and you will find a
firmness and toughness of fiber that resists but stays there longer once
the dent is made.
¶ This little illustration is typical of the differences between these
two natures throughout their entirety. Just as the fat man's face gives
to your touch, he will give in to you more easily than any other
type; but he will go back to the same place sooner and more smoothly
when your pressure is removed.
[Pg 136]
The Muscular does not mold so easily, is less suggestible, is less
tractable than the Alimentive or Thoracic but is less likely to revert
afterwards.
¶ "On the Square" is a figurative expression usually applying to a moral tendency. In this sense it is as often possessed by one type as another. But in a purely literal sense the Muscular is actually built on the square. His whole figure is a combination of squares.
The Alimentive is built upon the circle, the Thoracic on the kite-shape but the pure Muscular always tends toward a squareness of outline.
We repeat, he is no more "square" morally than any other type, so do not make the mistake of attributing any more of this virtue to him than to others.
¶ Each type has its own weaknesses and points of strength as
differentiated from other types and these are responsible for most of
the moral differences between people.[Pg 138]
¶ Since moral weakness comes from type weakness and since each type
possesses about as many weaknesses as the others, it follows that no
type is superior "morally" to any other and no type is morally inferior
to any other.
¶ Morality is mostly a matter of how much temptation you can withstand.
Every individual in a civilized community is surrounded by temptations of some kind most of the time. He does not want to yield to any of them. Every man and woman does the best of which his particular type is capable under a given circumstance.
Each individual resists many temptations for which we fail to give him credit. He yields only to those which make such a strong appeal to his type that he lacks the power of resistance.
In other words, each person yields to the temptations that prey upon his particular weaknesses, and what his weaknesses are will depend upon his type. In the grip of these temptations he may commit anything from discourtesy to crime[Pg 139] - according to the strength of the temptation plus his own leaning in that direction.
On the other hand, certain "immoralities" which appeal strongly to some
types have no attraction whatever for others and these latter get credit
for a virtuousness that has cost them nothing.
¶ On the other hand, each one of the five human types has certain points
of strength and from these gets its natural "moral" qualities. We spend
a great deal of energy giving praise and blame but when we realize - as
we are doing more and more - that the type of an individual is
responsible for most of his acts, we will give less of both to the
individual and more of both to the Creator.
¶ The most that training can do is to brace up the weak spots in us; to
cultivate the strong ones; to teach us to avoid inimical environments;
and to constantly remind us of the penalties we pay whenever we digress.
¶ As this great science of Human Analysis becomes known the world will understand for the[Pg 140] first time "how the other half lives," and why it lives that way.
We will know why one child just naturally tells fibs while his twin
brother, under identical training, just naturally tells the truth. What
is more to the point we will know this in their childhood and be
prepared to give to each the kind of training which will weed out his
worst and bring out his best.
¶ The extreme Muscular type (See Chart 5) is below medium height, though one of any height may be largely muscular.
The extreme type, of which we are treating in this chapter, is shorter
and heavier than the average. But his heaviness is due to muscle
instead of fat. He has the appearance of standing firmly, solidly upon
the ground, of being stalwart and strong.
¶ The Muscular's shoulders stand out more nearly at right angles than
those of any other type and are much broader in proportion to his
height. The Alimentive has sloping shoulders and the Thoracic inclines
to high shoulders. But the shoul[Pg 141]ders of the pure Muscular are
straighter and have a squareness where the Alimentive's have curves.
This accounts for the fact that most of the square shouldered men you
have known were not tall men, but medium or below medium in height. The
wide square shoulders do not accompany any other pure type, though
naturally they may be present in an individual who is a combination.
¶ The arms of pure Musculars are longer in proportion to the body than
the arms of other types. The arms of the Alimentive are short for his
body but the extreme Muscular's arms are always anywhere from slightly
longer to very much longer than his height would lead you to expect.
¶ A "square head" is the first thing you think of when you look at a
pure Muscular. His head has no such decided digressions from the normal
as the round head of the Alimentive or the kite-shaped head of the
Thoracic. It is not high for his body like the Thoracic's nor small for
his body like the Alimentive's, but is of average proportions.
 It is not fat like that of the Alimentive nor medium long like that of the Thoracic but has unusual muscularity and strength.
This is one of the chief indications of the Muscular's strength. A
sturdy neck is one of the most significant indications of physical
prowess and longevity, while the frail neck - of which we shall speak in
connection with the fifth type - is always a sign of the physical frailty
which endangers life. The thickness of his neck may sometimes give you
the impression that the Muscular head is small but if you will look
again you will see that it is normal for his bodily size.
¶ Looking at him from directly in front you will see that the Muscular's
face gives you an impression of squareness. (See Chart 6) You will also
notice that his side-head, cheeks and jaw run up and down in such a way
as to give him a right-angled face.
¶ A broad jaw is another characteristic of this type. Not only is it square, looked at from the front,[Pg 144] but you are pretty sure to note that the jaw bones, as they proceed downward under the ear, tend to make a right-angled turn at the corners instead of a rounded curve.
These dimensions tend to give the whole lower part of the Muscular's
face a box-like appearance. It is considered becoming to men but robs
its female owners of the delicate, pointed chin so much desired by
women.
¶ Notice the hands of the people you meet and you will be surprised to see how different and how interesting they are. Their size, shape and structure as seen from the back of the hand are especially significant and tell us much more about the individual's nature than the palm does.
Perhaps you have thought that a hand was just a hand. But there are hands and hands. Each pure type has its own and no other is ever seen on the extreme of that type.