308 On the Seme of Feeling. 



The other set of muscles are smaller, and formed rather for celerity of 

 motion than strength. They lie upon the palm of the hand, between the 

 bones of the fingers and around the thumb, and are the means by which the 

 fingers are enabled to play upon a musical instrument. 



There are no less than forty muscles belonging to the hand, of which 

 twenty lie upon the forearm, and act through their tendons, and twenty 

 lie upon the hand itself, and round the joints which they move. Tlie 

 thumb, forefinger, and little finger, possess peculiar muscles of their own. 



This muscular system has next to be supplied with blood. Tiiis is ma- 

 naged by three arteries, which, coming down the wrist, are distributed 

 upon the palm and fingers ; two of them forming very beautiful arches, 

 from the convexity of which the arteries of the fingers are sent off. 



The supply of blood to the hand is large, the constant muscular action 

 of the part requiring constant replenishment. 



The hand is supplied with nerves from a variety of sources, which it 

 would be tedious here to enumerate ; neither need we dwell upon its ab- 

 sorbents. 



We have then, to recapitulate, the hand, composed of bones, giving sup- 

 port and a determinate figure to the whole ; of ligaments, by which those 

 bones are held together j of muscles, by which they are moved upon each 

 other, and which bestow upon the hard and harsh bones a graceful and 

 flowing outline j of blood-vessels, by which the muscular fabric is kept in 

 constant readiness for action ; of nerves, by which the motions of the parts 

 are excited j and of absorbents, by which the whole is prepared for reno- 

 vation. For all the purposes of active motion, the instrument would seem 

 to be complete ; but other offices are to be performed, and therefore other 

 structures are superimposed. 



Of these the chief is the integument. 



Upon the surface of the muscles, passing between their interstices, filling 

 up all their vacuities, bringing up the whole to a uniform surface, and form- 

 ing a proper cushion for the skin, is the cellular membrane, and upon this 

 rests the skin itself. 



The whole anterior surface of the hand is much more highly organised 

 than the posterior, and there are observable upon it a vast number of those 

 convoluted lines of papillae, which denote a powerful development of the 

 organ of tact. 



The organ which has been described is perhaps the most wonderful in 

 nature. It is remarkable that every other organ, with the exception of 

 that of touch, is found more perfect in brutes than in man. The eye, the 

 ear, the nostril, the tongue, are all inordinately developed in some one or 

 another animal, but the sense of touch, as exhibited in the human hand, is 

 singular and supreme. 



Frequently, in considering the moral, and sometimes in contemplating 

 the physical, arrangements of Nature, that is of God, we are apt, in the 



