194 RIGHTHANDEDNESS. 



The human hand is unquestionably the most perfect of hands, what- 

 ever be its relation to inferior developments of a similar organ. The 

 wonderful complexity of its structure, its nice delicacy of touch, and 

 its adaptation in all ways for being the organ of an intelligent volition, 

 fitted for the execution of every requirement of ingenuity and skill, 

 alike suggest its recognition as one special and distinctive feature of 

 man's organization. The hand of the monkey is a locomotive, as well 

 as a prehensile organ ; whereas the differences between the hand and 

 foot of man point to essentially diverse functions for each. The short, 

 weak thumb, the long, nearly uniform fingers, and inferior play of the 

 wrist, are advantageous to the tree-climber, and pertain to the hand as 

 an organ of locomotion; whereas the absence of all such qualities in 

 the human hand secures its permanent delicacy of touch, and its 

 general adaptation for all manipulative purposes. 



There are, however, unquestionably, traces of prehensile capacity in 

 the human foot; and even of remarkable adaptability to certain func- 

 tions of the hand. Well-known cases have occurred, of persons born 

 without hands, or early deprived of them, learning to use their feet in 

 many delicate operations, including not only the employment of pen 

 and pencil, but the use of scissors, with a facility which still more 

 strikingly indicates the separate action of the great toe, and its thumb- 

 like apposition to the others. Still the human foot is not a hand. The 

 small size of the toes, as compared with the fingers, and the position 

 and movements of the great toe, alike point to diverse functions, and a 

 greatly more limited range of action in the normal use of the toes. 

 But the latent capacity of the system of muscles of the foot — scarcely 

 less elaborate than that of the hand, — is obscured to us by the rigid 

 restraints of the modern shoe. The power of voluntary action in the 

 toes manifests itself not only in cases where early mutilation, or malfor- 

 mation at birth, compels the substitution of the foot for the hand ; but 

 among savages, where the unshackled foot is in constant use in climbing, 

 and feeling its way through brake and jungle, the same free use of the 

 toes, and especially the power of separating the great toe from the 

 others, which may be seen in the involuntary movements of a healthy 

 child, is retained. A very brief experience of the soft, yielding deer- 

 skin moccasin of the Red Indian, in place of the rigid European shoe, 

 restores even to the unpractised foot of the white man a freedom of 

 action in the toes, a discriminating sense of touch, and a capacity for 

 grasping rock or tree in walking or climbing, such as he had no concep- 



