The last of the bodily senses is _Touch_. It has the widest gateway, and
largest apparatus of them all; for though we are in the habit of
speaking of it as localized in the fingers, it reigns throughout the
body, and is the token of life in every part. The nearest approach to
death which can occur in a living body, is the condition of paralysis or
palsy, a death in life, marked in one of its forms by the loss of that
sense of touch which is so marked an endowment of every active, healthy
creature.
The tactile susceptibilities of the skin depend, as do the peculiar
endowment of the other organs of the senses, on its plentiful supply
with those wondrous living nerves, which place in vital communication
with each other all the organs of the body, on the one hand; and that,
mysterious living center, the brain (and its adjuncts), on the other.
Our simplest conception of an organ of sense is supplied by the finger,
which whether it touches or is touched, equally realizes that contact
has been made with it, and enables the mind to draw conclusions
regarding the qualities of the bodies which impress it. Now, after all,
every one of the organs of the senses is but a clothed living nerve
conscious of touch, and they differ from each other only in reference to
the kind of touch which they can exercise or feel. Keeping in view that
to touch and to be touched is in reality the same thing, so far as the
impression of a foreign body is concerned, we can justly affirm that the
tongue is but a kind of finger, which touches and is touched by savors;
that the nostril is touched by odors; the ear by sounds; and the eye by
light.
The _Hand_ is emphatically the organ of touch, not merely because the
tips of the fingers, besides being richly endowed with those nerves
which confer sensitiveness upon the skin of the whole body, possess in
addition an unusual supply of certain minute auxiliary bodies, called
“tactile corpuscles,” but because the arrangement of the thumb and
fingers, and the motions of the wrist, elbow, and arm, give the hand a
power of accommodating itself spontaneously to surfaces, which no other
part of the body possesses. Moreover, when we speak of the hand as the
organ of touch, we do not refer merely to the sensitiveness of the skin
of the fingers, but also to that consciousness of pressure upon them in
different directions, by means of which we largely judge of form.
When a blind man, for example, plays a musical instrument he is guided
in placing his fingers, not merely by the impression made upon the skin
of them, but also by impressions conveyed through the skin to these
little bundles of flesh called muscles, which move the fingers.
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 eye, the ear, and the
nostril stand simply open: light, sound, and fragrance enter, and we are
compelled to see, to hear and to smell; but the hand selects what it
shall touch, and touches what it pleases. It puts away from it the
things which it hates, and beckons toward it the things which it
desires; unlike the eye, which must often gaze transfixed at horrible
sights from which it cannot turn; and the ear, which cannot escape from
the torture of discordant sounds; and the nostril, which cannot protect
itself from hateful odors.
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 hand of the blind man goes with him as an eye through the streets,
and safely threads for him all the devious ways; it looks for him at the
faces of his friends, and tells him whose kindly features are gazing on
him; it peruses books for him, and quickens the long hours by its silent
readings.
It ministers as willingly to the deaf; and when the tongue is dumb and
the ear stopped, its fingers speak eloquently to the eye, and enable it
to discharge the unwonted office of a listener.
The organs of all the other senses, also, even in their greatest
perfection, are beholden to the hand for the enhancement and the
exaltation of their powers.
It constructs for the eye a copy of itself, and thus gives it a
telescope with which to range among the stars; and by another copy on a
slightly different plan, furnishes it with a microscope, and introduces
it into a new world of wonders.
It constructs for the ear the instruments by which it is educated, and
sounds them in its hearing till its powers are trained to the full.
It plucks for the nostril the flower which it longs to smell, and
distills for it the fragrance which it covets.
As for the tongue, if it had not the hand to serve it, it might abdicate
its throne as the “Lord of Taste.” In short, the organ of touch is the
minister of its sister senses, and, without any play of words, is the
handmaid of them all.
And if the hand thus munificently serves the body, not less amply does
it give expression to the genius and the wit, the courage and the
affection, the will and the power of man. Put a sword into it, and it
will fight for him; put a plow into it, and it will till for him; put a
harp into it, and it will play for him; put a pencil into it, and it
will paint for him; put a pen into it, and it will speak for him, plead
for him, pray for him.
What will it not do? What has it not done? A steam engine is but a
larger hand, made to extend its powers by the little hand of man! An
electric telegraph is but a long pen for that little hand to write with!
All our huge cannon and other weapons of war, with which we so
effectually slay our brethern, are only Cain’s hand made bigger, and
stronger, and bloodier!
What, moreover, is a ship, a railway, a lighthouse, 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, in 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 its will!
What an instrument for good it is! What an instrument for evil! and all
the day long it never is idle. There is no implement which it cannot
wield, and it should never in working hours be without one. It is the
one universal craftsman. For the queen’s hand there is the scepter, and
for the soldier’s hand the sword; for the carpenter’s hand the saw, and
for the smith’s hand the hammer; for the farmer’s hand the plow; for the
miner’s hand the pick; for the sailor’s hand the oar; for the painter’s
hand the brush; for the sculptor’s hand the chisel; for the poet’s hand
the pen; and for the woman’s hand the needle.
For each willing man and woman there is a tool they may learn to handle;
for all there is the command, “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it
with all thy might.”
Such are the five entrance-ways of knowledge, which John Bunyan quaintly
styles Eye-gate, Ear-gate, Nose-gate, Mouth-gate, and Feel-gate.