THE HAND AS AN UNRULY MEMBER. 417 
ger of repetition who takes for his subject a part of our 
corporeal frame, concerning which there has been written 
by men of science, preached by divines, and even sung by 
poets, more than of any other organ, excepting, perhaps, 
the eye. He would indeed be most presuming who should, 
without the reputation and consciousness of most pro- 
found knowledge, undertake to more than express his 
concurrence in what has been already said concerning the 
beauty of form, the complexity of structure, the marvel- 
lous skill, and the wonderful diversity of function which 
characterize the human hand. 
There is, however, a view of the subject to which little 
attention has been paid by those who have treated it, but 
a correct idea of which is really essential to the fullest 
appreciation of the wonders so eloquently set forth by Sir 
Charles Bell,* and by anatomists generally,—a view in 
which the human band, while furnishing to the student of 
final causes, to the teleologist, his most perfect illustration 
of the adaptation of means to desired ends, becomes to the 
morphologist, to the student of unity of type under diver- 
sity of form and function, a fruitful source of anxiety, 
and even, as will be seen, of serious error. 
So widely spread and so deeply rooted is this error, and 
so almost wholly is it due to the peculiar structure and 
endowments of the hand, that we are justified in drawing 
a comparison between it and that other organ whereof the 
Apostle wrote, —“Even so the tongue is a little member. 
. .. . It is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison.” 
Now it is evident that by tongue in this connection is 
by no means indicated the mere anatomical organ which 
all vertebrates carry in the floor of the mouth, composed 
of certain muscles, supported by certain bones, and sup- 
a the Hand 
sPreauise 
hi 
AMERICAN NAT., VOL. I. 53 
