The Mind and the Hand are Allies; the Mind speculates, the Hand tests its Speculations in Things. — The Hand explodes the Errors of the Mind — it searches after Truth and finds it in Things. — Mental Errors are subtile; they elude us, but the False in Things stands self-exposed. — The Hand is the Mind’s Moral Rudder. — The Organ of Touch the most Wonderful of the Senses; all the Others are Passive; it alone is Active. — Sir Charles Bell’s Discovery of a “Muscular Sense.” — Dr. Henry Maudsley on the Muscular Sense. — The Hand influences the Brain. — Connected Thought impossible without Language, and Language dependent upon Objects; and all Artificial Objects are the Work of the Hand. — Progress is therefore the Imprint of the Hand upon Matter in Art. — The Hand is nearer the Brain than are the Eye and the Ear. — The Marvellous Works of the Hand.

A purely mental acquirement is a theorem—something to be proved. As to whether the theorem is susceptible of proof is always a question until the doubt is solved by the act of doing. Hence Comenius’s definition of education—“Let those things that have to be done be learned by doing them”—is profoundly philosophical, since nothing can be fully learned without the final act of doing, owing to the fact of the incompleteness of all theoretical knowledge.

The mind and the hand are natural allies. The mind speculates; the hand tests the speculations of the mind by the law of practical application. The hand explodes the errors of the mind, for it inquires, so to speak, by the act of doing, whether or not a given theorem is demonstrable in the form of a problem. The hand is, therefore, not only constantly searching after the truth, but is constantly finding it.[13] It is possible for the mind to indulge in false logic, to make the worse appear the better reason, without instant exposure. But for the hand to work falsely is to produce a misshapen thing—tool or machine—which in its construction gives the lie to its maker. Thus the hand that is false to truth, in the very act publishes the verdict of its own guilt, exposes itself to contempt and derision, convicts itself of unskilfulness or of dishonesty.

There is no escaping the logical conclusion of an investigation into the relations existing between the mind and the hand. The hand is scarcely less the guide than the agent of the mind. It steadies the mind. It is the mind’s moral rudder, its balance-wheel. It is the mind’s monitor. It is constantly appealing to the mind, by its acts, to “hew to the line, let the chips fly where they may.”

Dr. George Wilson says, “In many respects the organ of touch, as embodied in the hand, is the most wonderful of the senses. The organs of the other senses are passive; the organ of touch alone is active.... The hand selects what it shall touch, and touches what it pleases. It puts away from it the things which it hates, and beckons towards it the things which it desires.... Moreover, the hand cares not only for its own wants, but when the other organs of the senses are rendered useless takes their duties upon it.... The blind man reads with his hand, the dumb man speaks with it; it plucks the flower for the nostril, and supplies the tongue with objects of taste. Not less amply does it give expression to the wit, the genius, the will, the power of man. Put a sword into it and it will fight, a plough and it will till, a harp and it will play, a pencil and it will paint, a pen and it will speak. What, moreover, is a ship, a railway, a light-house, or a palace—what indeed is a whole city, a whole continent of cities, all the cities of the globe, nay the very globe itself, so far as man has changed it, but the work of that giant hand with which the human race, acting as one mighty man, has executed his will.”[14]

There is a philosophical explanation of the versatility of the hand so graphically portrayed in the foregoing passage, and it is found in Sir Charles Bell’s great discovery of a “muscular sense.” The principle of this discovery is that “there are distinct nerves of sensation and of motion or volition—one set bearing messages from the body to the brain, and the other from the brain to the body.”

In his work on the hand, after reviewing the line of argument which led to his discovery, Sir Charles says, “By such arguments I have been in the habit of showing that we possess a muscular sense, and that without it we could have no guidance of the frame. We could not command our muscles in standing, far less in walking, leaping, or running, had we not a perception of the condition of the muscles previous to the exercise of the will. And as for the hand, it is not more the freedom of its action which constitutes its perfection, than the knowledge which we have of these motions, and our consequent ability to direct it with the utmost precision.”[15]

On the influence of the muscular sense, Dr. Henry Maudsley has these pertinent observations:

“Those who would degrade the body, in order, as they imagine, to exalt the mind, should consider more deeply than they do the importance of our muscular expressions of feeling. The manifold shades and kinds of expression which the lips present—their gibes, gambols, and flashes of merriment; the quick language of a quivering nostril; the varied waves and ripples of beautiful emotion which play on the human countenance, with the spasms of passion that disfigure it—all which we take such pains to embody in art—are simply effects of muscular action.... Fix the countenance in the pattern of a particular emotion—in a look of anger, of wonder, or of scorn—and the emotion whose appearance is thus imitated will not fail to be aroused. And if we try, while the features are fixed in the expression of one passion, to call up in the mind a quite different one, we shall find it impossible to do so.... We perceive, then, that the muscles are not alone the machinery by which the mind acts upon the world, but that their actions are essential elements in our mental operations. The superiority of the human over the animal mind seems to be essentially connected with the greater variety of muscular action of which man is capable; were he deprived of the infinitely varied movements of hands, tongue, larynx, lips, and face, in which he is so far ahead of the animals, it is probable that he would be no better than an idiot, notwithstanding he might have a normal development of brain.”[16]

It is through the muscular sense that the hand influences the brain. According to Sir Charles the hand acts first. It telegraphs, for example, that it is ready to grasp the chisel or the sledge-hammer, or seize the pen, whereupon the brain telegraphs back precise directions as to the work to be done. These messages to and fro are lightning-like flashes of intelligence, which blend or fuse all the powers of the man, both mental and physical, and inform and inspire the mass with vital force.[17]

Through constant use the muscular sense is sharpened to a marvellous degree of fineness, and the hand, permeated by it, forms habits which react powerfully upon the mind. If, now, during the period of childhood and youth, the hand is exercised in the useful and beautiful arts, its muscular sense will be developed normally, or in the direction of rectitude, and the reflex effect of this growth upon the mind will be beneficent.

It is thus that the trained hand comes at last to foresee, as it were, that a false proposition is surely destined to be exploded. The habit of rectitude gives it prescience. It invariably discovers, sooner or later, that a false proposition, when embodied in wood or iron, becomes a conspicuous abortion, involving in disgrace both the designer and the maker. A false proposition in the abstract may be rendered very alluring; a false proposition in the concrete is always hideous. One of the chief effects of manual training is, then, the discovery and development of truth; and truth, in its broadest signification, is merely another name for justice; and justice is the synonym of morality.

It has been shown that thought and speech are dead unless embodied in things. It may also be asserted with confidence that man would lose the power of speech almost wholly if his words should cease to be realized in things. Mr. Darwin declares that “a complex train of thought can no more be carried on without the aid of words, whether spoken or silent, than a long calculation without the use of figures or algebra.”[18] And Dr. Maudsley says, “But neither these instances nor the case of Laura Bridgman can be used to prove that it is possible to think without any means of physical expression. On the contrary the evidence is all the other way. The deaf and dumb man invents his own signs, which he draws from the nature of objects, seizing the most striking outline, or the principal movement of an action, and using them afterwards as tokens to represent the objects. The deaf and dumb gesticulate also as they think; and Laura Bridgman’s fingers worked, making the initial movements for letters of the finger alphabet, not only during her waking thoughts, but in her dreams. If we substitute for ‘names’ the motor intuitions, or take care to comprise in language all the modes of expressing thoughts, whether verbal, vocal writing, or gesture language, then it is unquestionable that thought is impossible without language.”[19]

As connected thoughts are impossible without words, or signs of words, so words are dependent upon objects for their existence. Says Dr. Maudsley, “Words cannot attain to definiteness save as living outgrowths of realities.”[20] And Heyse says, “Thought is not even present to the thinker till he has set it forth out of himself.”

It follows that language has its origin not less in external objects than in the mind. Objects make impressions upon the mind through the senses, and words serve as the means of preserving a record of such impressions and of communicating them to other minds. If, now, the mind should cease to receive impressions, language would no longer be required, since there would be nothing to express; and the occasion for the use of language ceasing to exist, the power of speech would ultimately be lost. The power of speech, then, depends upon a continuous succession of impressions made upon the mind by its contact, through the senses, with matter in its various forms, whether in nature or in art.

It may also be claimed that the power of speech depends almost entirely upon the endless succession of fresh objects presented to the mind by the hand. These form the subject as well as the occasion of speech. If the hand should cease to make new things, new words would cease to be required. The principal changes in language arise out of new discoveries in science and new inventions in art, each fresh discovery of science giving rise to many new things in art. Art and science react upon each other.[21] The growth of a State, its advance in the scale of civilization, depends upon progress in the practical arts. Hence the fact that, when a State ceases to advance, its language ceases to grow, becomes stationary, stagnates. In such a State there would be no occasion for new words. If a constantly diminishing number of objects were presented to the mind, speech would become less and less necessary. If no new objects were presented, no fresh impressions upon the mind would be made, and speech would degenerate into a mere iteration. If the hands should cease to labor in the arts, should cease to make things, should cease to plant and gather, the scope of speech would be still further restricted, would be confined to an expression of the wants of savages subsisting on the native fruits of field and forest.

It comes to this, that progress can find expression only in the concrete. Guttenberg had an idea that he could employ movable types in the production of books. Suppose he had been content with the mere promulgation of his theory in words, and that those who came after him had been similarly content? There would have been no printing-presses down to the present time. Suppose that Watt and Stephenson and Fulton had been content with the declaration, in words, of the discoveries they made in regard to the application of the power of steam to useful purposes, and that those who came after them had been similarly content? There would have been neither railways, nor steamships, nor steam-driven machinery of any kind down to the present time.

As words are essential to the processes of thought, so objects are essential to words or living speech. And as all objects made by man owe their existence to the hand, it follows that the hand exerts an incalculable influence upon the mind, and so constitutes the most potent agency in the work of civilization. It was not without good reason that Anaxagoras characterized man as the wisest of animals because of his having hands. And what is it to be wise? To be wise is “to have the power of discerning and judging correctly, or of discriminating between what is true and what is false; between what is fit and proper and what is improper.” The hand is used as the synonym of wisdom because it is only in the concrete that the false is sure of detection, and it is through the hand alone that ideas are realized in things.[22] Again we have the hand as the discoverer of truth.

The assertion of the majesty of the hand by the Ionic philosopher of the fifth century B.C. contained the germ of the manual training idea of this latter part of the nineteenth century. Anaxagoras was unconsciously, no doubt, struggling toward the light, toward the inductive method of investigation, toward the sole avenue through which it is possible to study the mind, namely, through the body. The ignorance of the ancients on the subject of physiology was so dense as to leave them no resource save speculative philosophy. The progress made in the study of anatomy, and organic and inorganic chemistry at Alexandria, was, however, considerable. The foundations of a systematic physiology were being securely laid by Hippocrates, Herophilus, and their compeers of the medical profession, and the way was thus being opened to an intelligent study of the mind. It is highly probable that this growing disposition to investigate things, together with the increasing importance to civilization of the useful arts, would soon have reacted destructively upon the speculative philosophy of the time had not a series of national disasters, involving the fall of Greece and Rome, overwhelmed both arts and philosophy in one common ruin.

From the fall of Rome to the time of Bacon speculative philosophy dominated the world. Progress dates from the beginning of the seventeenth century, but it was very slow until within a hundred years. Philosophy has now, however, found a scientific basis. Instead of speculating about the “theory of vitality,” it concerns itself with “the natural phenomena of living bodies, so far as they are appreciable by the human senses and intelligence.”

But the schools have not moved forward with events. Their methods are unscientific; they are still dominated by the mediæval ideas of speculative philosophy. One of the ablest educators in this country has well observed that “there has been very little change in the ideas which have controlled our methods of education, and these ideas were formed something like four hundred years ago. Like nearly all the great agencies of modern civilization, the established system of education dates from the Renaissance, and the direction given to the schools at that time has been followed with but slight modification ever since.”[23]

The justice of this arraignment of the schools for extreme conservatism is shown by the remark of a prominent educator who opposes the incorporation of manual training in the curriculum of the public schools. He says, “Some even go so far as to regard the fingers as a new avenue to the brain, and think that great pedagogic advantages will be given by the new method, so that boys may make equal attainments in arithmetic, reading, and grammar in less time.... They [teachers] will still find the eye and ear nearer to the brain than the hand.” No assumption could be more false than this, that the eye and the ear are more important organs than the hand because they are located, physically, nearer the brain. The attribute of mobility with which the hand is endowed confers upon it not only the potency of the closest possible proximity, but each of the countless positions it may assume, together with its flexibility and adaptability, multiplies its powers in the order of a geometrical ratio.

This disposition to undervalue the hand is an inheritance from the speculative philosophy of the Middle Ages, which was based on contempt of the body and all its members. The effect of this false doctrine has been vicious in the extreme. Contempt for the body has generated a feeling of contempt for manual labor, and repugnance to manual labor has multiplied dishonest practices in the course of the struggle to acquire wealth by any other means than manual labor, and so corrupted society.

That man should feel contempt for the most efficient member of his own body is, indeed, incomprehensible, since contempt for the hand leads logically to contempt for its works, and its works comprise all the visible results of civilization. To enumerate the works of the hand would be to describe the world as it at present exists in contradistinction to the world in a state of nature. Everywhere we behold with admiration and wonder the marvellous triumphs of the hand, from the iron bridge that spans the torrent of Niagara to the steel micrometer that measures the millionth part of an inch. It matters not whether the hand is nearer or farther from the brain than the eye and the ear, it is able to afford powerful aid to them.

Man would explore the planetary system; he lifts his longing eyes to the starry vault, but in vain; it is a sealed book! The hand fashions the telescope, adjusts it, places it at a convenient angle, and the milky way is resolved into millions of stars, “scattered like glittering dust on the black ground of the general heavens,” the lunar mountains are measured, and the spots on the sun revealed. Man would study the anatomy and habits of the myriads of insects in which the teeming earth abounds. Impossible! The mechanism of the eye is not adapted to such a delicate operation. But the hand presents the microscope, and a world of hitherto unknown minute existences is revealed with a distinctness which permits the most exhaustive investigation. Thus, through the aid of the hand, the eye now contemplates with philosophic interest the ever-changing aspect of the spots on the sun at a distance of ninety million miles, and now imprisons the red ant, measuring only ⁶⁄₁₀₀ of an inch in length, and studies its physiology, counting its pulsations, classifying its nerves and muscles, and weighing its brain. Man would speak with his friend or business correspondent miles away. Neither the voice nor the ear is adapted to the task. But the hand fashions and presents the telephone, and the conversation proceeds even in a whisper. It will be said that the mind devises the telescope, the microscope, and the telephone. True, but their construction would be impossible without the hand. And is it at all probable that the mind would have devised these admirable instruments if man had been made without hands?[24]