The happy idea came to me to mingle with mothers, children and nurses.

“Ah,” said I, “in the midst of this throng, laughing and crying at the same time—­singing, shouting, gesticulating, jumping, dancing—­here is life!  If the contemplation of this turbulent and affectionate little world does not instruct me, where shall I find the solution I seek?”

I did not have to wait long for this solution.

I noticed nurses who were distracted and indifferent to the children under their charge; in these the thumb was invariably drawn toward the fingers, thus offering some resemblance to the adduction which it manifests in death.  With other nurses, more affectionate, the fingers of the hand that held the child were visibly parted, displaying a thumb bent outward; but this eccentration rose to still more startling proportion in those mothers whom I saw each carrying her own child; there the thumb was bent violently outward, as if to embrace and clasp a beloved being.

Thus I was not slow to recognize that the contraction of the thumb is inversely proportionate, its extension directly proportionate to the affectional exaltation of the life.  “No doubt,” I said to myself, “the thumb is the thermometer of life in its extending progression as it is of death in its contracting progression.”

Countless examples have confirmed this.  I could even, on the spot, form an idea of the degree of affection felt for the children entrusted to their care, by the women who passed before my eyes.

Sometimes I would say:  “There is a servile creature whose heart is dead to that poor child whom she carries like an inert mass; the position of the thumb drawn toward the fingers renders that indifference evident,” Again it was a woman in whom the sources of life swelled high at the contact with the dear treasure which she clasped; that woman was surely the mother of the child she carried, the excessive opening of her thumb left no room for doubt.

Thus my diagnostics were invariably confirmed by exact information, and I could see to what extent the remarks which I had recorded, were justified.  I drew from them most interesting applications for my special course of study.

Thus, suppose I had asked the same service from three men, and that each had answered me with the single word yes, accompanied by a gesture of the hand.  If one of them had let his thumb approach the forefinger, it is plain to me that he would deceive me, for his thumb thus placed tells me that he is dead to my proposition.

If I observe in the second a slight abduction of the thumb, I must believe that he, although indisposed to oblige me, will still do so from submission.

But if the third abducts his thumb forcibly from the other fingers, oh!  I can count on him, he will not deceive me!  The abduction of his thumb tells me more in regard to his loyalty than all the assurances which he might give me.