To know the significance of your prospect’s different words, tones, and movements—­the only means he has for the expression of his ideas and feelings, just apply to his case whatever you have learned in studying yourself.  Adapt your previous discriminative knowledge to the prospect you are sizing up.  Restrict your conclusions about him to the significance of details you observe in his appearance, actions, and speech.

After considerable practice in sizing up you will become familiar with the indications of many different traits. But in most cases it will be sufficient if you can observe swiftly and interpret in a flash only a few of the commonest character signs.  We will touch briefly upon some of these.

[Sidenote:  Facial Muscles]

Tense jaw muscles, whether large or small, denote the characteristic of persistence.  But loose, flabby cheek muscles do not necessarily prove the habit of over-eating, or of sensuality.  They may mean that the man who has them does not habitually allow his feelings to show in his face.  When the muscles of facial expression are flabby they prove only that they are slightly used.  Therefore when you encounter a man with loose cheeks read his characteristics from other muscle-structure signs, and from his actions.  Do not misjudge the heavy face as a sign of grossness.

[Sidenote:  Courage And Bluff]

If a man holds his head up easily, and moves it in this upright position without stiffness or effort, you may be sure his back neck and shoulder muscles are strongly developed.  Such strong development suggests that he is courageous, for these muscles are directly co-ordinated with the mind center of bravery.  Therefore the head and shoulders easily held back and up; not a high chest, signify courage.  The bulging chest often indicates no more than pouter-pigeon bluff temporarily put on.

[Sidenote:  Indications Of Intellect And Power]

A man’s high chest, however, is a sign that his predominant characteristics are intellectual; because his chest has been developed by the student’s habit of upper-lung breathing.  The nerves running from the upper part of the lungs are directly connected with the brain centers of intellect.  On the contrary the nerves that lead from the lower portions of the lungs center first in the plexus through which are manifested the vital emotions and the emotions of sex.  Hence the man who breathes deeply by habit indicates a great deal of vitality and has marked “he-man” traits.  He is not of the intellectual type so markedly as he is a man of power.  The man who breathes only from the upper part of his lungs is not a man of power, but may have a fine intellect.

[Sidenote:  Significance Of Postures]