OCR Text |
Show 76 EDUCATION OF THE HAND ; The hand of the Greenlander repo~es comfortably(. on the ice and that of the Bedouin JUSt as comfortably on th~ burning sand. The h~nd of the, porte~ is hardly sensible to an ounce, but 1t can mo~ ~· hu~ dredweicrhts · and while the hand of the e ICa .e workma~1 wduld tremble or give w~y under t?es~, It feels to the minuteness of a gram. Allusi~~ /a] often been made to blind Dr. Moyes, who co? ee colours and shades of col~ur. And the blmd, en: gineer of the midlat~d co?nties felt the level of 'erJ, irregular surfaces w1th h1~ feet, as. accurately as an) encrineer having eyes, w1th all h1s tele~co.pes, and le;'els, and scales for determining .th~ va.natwns. It is impossible, indeed, to set a l1m1t either to the weight or to the measure which the human hand can determine; and not the hand only, but the foot ?r any part of the body, so that there are muscles In it. Lines can be ruled much more finely by m~re touch in the dark, than they can be by the eye w1th the aid of all its microscopes; and the number of curves that a healthy and well-edu?ated han.d can delineate is perfectly endless, and 1t. can delmeate them as well in absolute darkness as m broad day. How varied are the tones produced by the touch of the pianoforte, by pin?hing the ~oles of a ~u~e, or by fingering and bowmg the stnn~s of. a vwlm. These are all exquisite; and. t~e flute w1th N1cholson, and the violin with Pagamm, are almost superhuman, and give us a taste of what we. 'yould call ~elestial; and yet, they arise from pos1hvely the si.mplest of all imaginary causes-th.e fine .mensuratiOn I of distance and space,..--the pressmg a little more or a little less with the finger: and any man who can simply lay ~is ~alm .on a loaf of b!ead, and feel that be is so laymg It, might educate h1m.s~lf up to those exquisite touches, and have the dehcwus pleasure of enjoying their effects whenever he chose.. We often tieglect it, but we absolu~ely have a mmc of wealth in those ten fingers, whlCh the longest and ITS VALt7E AND LIMITS. 77 most o~s~rvant life cannot exhaust. Exhaust! the f ~se o~ 1.t 1s the very revers~ ; for we absolutely multiply It I? the same proportwn.as we use it; and the hand whtch can do the most 1s the readiest in the successf~l perfo~~ance ?f any thing new. But. st1ll, exqtusite as IS the discrimination of the han~, tt can tak~ note only of that which has the most o?~I?US properties of matter. It has, indeed, a sen~ lbihty to heat and cold, but that is vacrue and variable masmuch as it is only the differen~e between th~ touching body and the substance touched and the body gives no information as to its own ten{perature and but a shadowy one of the relative temperature~ of other things. The real offices of the hand or rather of that muscular feeling of which the han'd is one of the most perfect instances, are, acting as a ba~ance to measure pressure and resistance, and as ~ lme to measure spa?e; an~ .though its sensibility m both these respects IS exqmsite almost to infinitude ~e can collect t~e little differences until their su~ IS of such magmtude as that we can recognise and cross-examine it by the eye, so as to make the one organ of observation establish the truth of the other But exquisitely fine as the discrimination of th~ hand can be rendered, arm's lencrth bounds the range of its know~edge; and muscul~r power can take heed of noth1!lg save that which resists it by contact; so that If our observation were limited to the hand or the muscular feeling, it would be less excursive than that which we obtain by smelling-whick does not define or even point out the situation of its object ~t all. Thus, thou~h we may grope our way very mmutely and very mcely to the details of nature in the dark, we should never be able to group them, o: to comprehend the beauty or grandeur of natur~, ~f w~ had not powers of observation scarcely less hm1ted m extent than excursions of mind itself. Now we have two remaining senses, the one of which more immediately enables us to learn from G2 |