The hand : its mechanism and vital endowments, as evincing design.

  • Charles Bell
Date:
1834
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The hand : its mechanism and vital endowments, as evincing design. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    25/376 (page 3)
    chanical structure, but as possessed of the pro- perty of touch, by which it ministers to and improves every other sense, and constitutes the organ in the body the most remarkable in cor- respondence with man’s capacities. Some may conceive that as I have for my title the Human Hand, and the relation of the solid structures of the animal frame, it will lead me to consider the body as a machine only. I neither see the necessity for this, nor do I acknowledge the danger of considering it in that light. I em- bark fearlessly in the investigation, convinced that, yielding to the current of thought, and giving the fullest scope to enquiry, there can be no hidden danger if the mind be free from vicious bias. I cannot see how scepticism should arise out of the contemplation of the structure and mechanism of the animal body. Let us for a moment think what is the natural result of examining the human body as a piece of machinery, and let us see vdiether it makes the creation of man more or less important in his relation to the whole scheme of nature. Suppose that there is placed before us a ma- chine for raising great weights, be it the simplest of all, the wheel and axle. We are given to understand that this piece of mechanism has the property of multiplying the power of the hand. But a youth of subtile mind may say, I do not believe that it is possible so to multiply the