13C UPPER EXTREMITIES AND HANDS OF MAN. 



wards. These remarkable differences are easily understood, 

 when we consider that the great toe, as one of the points on 

 which the body is supported, requires solidity ; while the 

 thumb, being concerned in all the numerous and varied 

 motions of the hand, must be organized for mobility. 



The human hands being terminated by long and flexible 

 members, of which only a small portion is covered by the 

 flat nails, while the rest is furnished with a highly organized 

 and very sensible integument, form admirable organs of 

 touch and instruments of prehension. The animal king- 

 dom exhibits no corresponding part so advantageously con- 

 structed in these respects. At the same time, the lateral 

 attachment of the arms to the trunk, and the erect attitude, 

 give us the freest use of these admirable instruments. So 

 greatly does man excel animals in the conformation of the 

 hands, that Anaxagoras asserted what Helvetius has 

 again brought forwards in our times, " that man is the 

 wisest of animals, because he possesses hands.*' In such 

 a view we can by no means coincide ; yet Aristotle is 

 well justified in observing that man alone possesses hands 

 really deserving that name. Several mammalia have also 

 hands, but much less complete, and less serviceable than 

 that of the human subject, which, in comparison to them, 

 was justly enough termed by the Stagyrite the organ of all 

 organs. The great superiority of the human hand arises 

 from the size and strength of the thumb, which can be 

 brought into a state of opposition to the fingers ; and is 

 hence of the greatest use, in enabling us to grasp spherical 

 bodies, and take up apy object in the hand, in giving a firm 

 hold on whatever we seize, in executing all the mechanical 

 processes of the arts, in writing, drawing, cutting ; in 

 short, in a thousand offices, which occur every moment of 

 our lives, and which either could not be accomplished at all, 

 if the thumb were absent, or would require the concurrence 

 of both hands, instead of being done by one only. Hence 

 it has been justly described by Albinus as a second hand, 

 " manus parva majori adjutrix *." 



* Di Scdtto, p. 465. 



