On the Sense of Feeling. 309 



presumptuous rashness of ignorance, to imagine " that we could have ar- 

 ranged it better." At the sight of the hand, this idea could not for a 

 moment arise. It seems, at once, impossible to devise an instrument better 

 suited to its multifarious work. The beautiful arrangement of its hones, the 

 contrivance exhibited in its well placed ligaments, the elegant form of its 

 complex muscles and tetidons, the regular distribution and careful defences 

 of its numerous nerves, blood-vessels, and adsorbents, and the integument 

 with which the vvliole is invested, are each of them wonderful, and in per- 

 fect harmony with the rest. 



Some animals, says the learned Kay, have horns, some have hoofs, some 

 teeth, some talons, some claws, some spurs and beaks ; man hath none of 

 all these, but is weak and feeble, and sent unarmed into the world. But a 

 hand, with reason to use it, supplies the place of all these. 



It is not, observes Buffon, only because there are a greater number of ner- 

 vous tufts at the extremity of the fingers, than in any other part of the 

 body ; it is not, as is vulgarly pretended, because the hand possesses the 

 most delicate sense, that it is in effect the principal organ of feeling : on the 

 contrary, we can say that there are parts more sensible, and where the 

 sense of feeling is more delicate, as the eyes, the tongue, etc. but it is 

 merely because the hand is divided into many parts, all moveable, all flex- 

 ible, all acting at one and the same time, and all obedient to the will ; it is 

 because it is the only organ which gives us distinct ideas of the forms of 

 bodies. 



Animals which have hands appear to be the most acute 5 apes do things 

 so resembling the mechanical actions of man, that it seems as if they had 

 the same succession of corporeal sensations for the cause of them. Ani- 

 mals which are deprived of this organ cannot have any distinct know- 

 ledge of the form of things ; as they cannot grasp any object, and as 

 they iiave not any part divided and flexible enough, to be able to adjust 

 itself upon the siqjerficics of bodies, they certainly have not any precise 

 notion of the form any more than of the size of them. 



It is for this reason, that we often see them in suspense, or frightened at 

 the aspect of objects, which they ought to be tiie best accpiainted with, and 

 which are the most familiar to them. The principal organ of their feeling 

 is the muzzle, because this part is divided into two by the mouth, and 

 because the tongue is another part, that serves them at the same time to 

 touch bodies, which wc see them turn again and again, before they take 

 them between their teeth. 



Pcrliaps one of tlic most beautiful tributes to creative skill, as well as 

 one of tlie most striking instances of rough unhewn reason, is contained in 

 the following passage from Mr. Ellis's Polynesia, as quoted by Mr. Cony- 

 bcare in his inaugural address. 



"On a public occasion, in the island of Raiatea, during the year 1825, 

 a number of the inhabitants were conversing upon the wisdom of God, 



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