418 THE HAND AS AN UNRULY MEMBER. 
plied with nerves of motion and of sensation. We are 
indeed right in applying the name tongue to the fleshy 
pad in the mouth of the fish, to the prehensile fly-catcher 
of the chameleon, to the barbed harpoon of the wood- 
pecker, and the glutinous snare of the ant-eater, thus re- 
cognizing in a cold, scientific way, their anatomical or 
morphological identity with the corresponding organ in the 
human body. But this last alone is used as a synonym 
for language ; it alone is the facile medium of ideas, as 
well as of sensations; it alone has entered the service of 
an immortal soul, and is characteristic of man. 
So with the hand. We recognize the same bones 
which form our upper limb (Fig. 1) in the foreleg of 
the quadruped (Fig. 2), in the wing of the bird and of 
the bat (Fig. 3), in the flipper of the seal (Fig. 4), and 
still more strikingly in the so-called arm of the ape (Fig. 
5); and though the forefoot of the bear is merely a paw 
when supporting his ungainly bulk upon the earth, yet 
when it is flourished in the air as he sits erect upon his 
haunches, we are glad to escape the blow of what is then 
admitted to be a tolerable imitation of a hand.* And yet 
it is not really such ; for if the presence of a thumb, capable 
of being opposed to the tips of any or all the fingers, is the 
distinguishing feature of a hand, we shall look for it in 
vain throughout the whole animal kingdom below man; 
for even in the gorilla the first digit, though strong, is 
short, and reaches only to the knuckle of the forefinger 
(Fig. 6), while in many of the lower monkies it is alto- 
gether wanting, and when present in quadrupeds is so in- 
timately connected with the other digits as to have no 
independent motion. 
We may assume, then, that the tongue and the hand, 
* As in Pliny, 8. 36. 54. 
