'
In like manner, by means of the hepatal line, it is easy to form an
accurate judgment as to the state of a person's liver, and of his
powers of digestion, and so on with respect to all the other organs
of the body.
After having laid down all the rules of chiromancy with the utmost
possible clearness, the sage Torreblanca exclaims: 'And with these
terminate the canons of true and catholic chiromancy; for as for
the other species by which people pretend to divine concerning the
affairs of life, either past or to come, dignities, fortunes,
children, events, chances, dangers, etc., such chiromancy is not
only reprobated by theologians, but by men of law and physic, as a
foolish, false, vain, scandalous, futile, superstitious practice,
smelling much of divinery and a pact with the devil.'
Then, after mentioning a number of erudite and enlightened men of
the three learned professions, who have written against such absurd
superstitions, amongst whom he cites Martin Del Rio, he falls foul
of the Gypsy wives in this manner: 'A practice turned to profit by
the wives of that rabble of abandoned miscreants whom the Italians
call Cingari, the Latins Egyptians, and we Gitanos, who,
notwithstanding that they are sent by the Turks into Spain for the
purpose of acting as spies upon the Christian religion, pretend
that they are wandering over the world in fulfilment of a penance
enjoined upon them, part of which penance seems to be the living by
fraud and imposition.
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