CHAPTER VII 



THE FOEE-LIMB: SUMMARY 



It would be a difficult matter to find the author who, 

 writing of the human forearm and the human hand, has 

 not seen in them the very highest and most perfect 

 development of the fore-limb found anywhere in the 

 animal kingdom. It has long been customary to lavish 

 praise upon this culmination of human perfections, or 

 climax of evolutionary advances, as writers of different 

 periods have judged it. The divine plan was most 

 surelv to be seen in the human hand, that most wonderful 

 of specially designed members. " The Construction of 

 the Hand of Man " was especially chosen by the trustees 

 of the Earl of Bridgwater as a subject in the expounding 

 of w^hich an apt writer could find outlet for almost in- 

 exhaustible eulogies, and for countless examples of 

 perfection of design. It is, perhaps, to be doubted if 

 Sir Charles Bell, in his completed Bridgwater Treatise, 

 took full advantage of the wealth of material at his 

 disposal, or of the iuvsatiable popular appetite for authori- 

 tative statements upon the human perfections. Bell was 

 so thorough an anatomist that it was impossible for him 

 to restrain his admiration for the lion's paw and the 

 horse's hoof — even the anatomical conditions of the 

 despised sloth find in him an admirer; but although they 

 are extremely elegant, his observations upon the liuman 

 hand are not perhaps coloured with an enthusiasm so 

 real as that which the noble patron himself entertained. 

 " Were we to limit our inquiry to the bones of the arm 

 and hand of Man, no doubt we should soon discover their 



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