THE MIND AND THE HAND.
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.
[13] “In other cases, even by the strictest attention, it is not
possible to give complete or strict truth in words. We could not, by
any number of words, describe the color of a ribbon so as to enable a
mercer to match it without seeing it. But an ‘accurate’ colorist can
convey the required intelligence at once, with a tint on paper.”--“The
Laws of Feesole,” Vol. I., p. 7. By John Ruskin, LL.D. New York: John
Wiley & Sons, 1879.
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]
[14] “The Five Gateways of Knowledge,” p. 121. By George Wilson, M.D.,
F.R.S.E. London: Macmillan & Co., 1881.
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]
[15] “The Hand: its Mechanism and Vital Endowments as Evincing
Design,” p. 151. By Sir Charles Bell, K.G.H., F.R.S., L. and E. Harper
& Brothers, 1864.
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]
[16] “Body and Mind,” p. 32. By Henry Maudsley, M.D. New York: D.
Appleton & Co., 1883.
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]
[17] The goldsmith’s art was one of the finest among the ancients, and
so continued far into the Middle Ages. The cutting of cameos, for
example, required the highest skill and produced the most exquisite
results. Mr. Ruskin calls attention to the fact that “all the great
early Italian masters of painting and sculpture, without exception,
began by being goldsmiths’ apprentices;” and that “they felt
themselves so indebted to, and formed by, the master craftsman who had
mainly _disciplined their fingers_, whether in work on gold or marble,
that they practically considered him their father, and took _his_ name
rather than their own.”--“Fors Clavigera,” Part III., p. 291. By John
Ruskin. LL.D. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1881.
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]
[18] “The Descent of Man,” p. 88. By Charles Darwin, M.A. New York: D.
Appleton & Co., 1881.
[19] “Physiology of the Mind,” p. 480. By Henry Maudsley, M.D. New
York: D. Appleton & Co., 1883.
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.”
[20] “I therefore declare my conviction,” says Max Müller, “whether
right or wrong, as explicitly as possible, that thought in one sense
of the word, _i. e._, in reasoning, is impossible without
language.”--“Physiology of the Mind,” p. 480. By Henry Maudsley, M.D.
New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1883.
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.
[21] “And the great advances in science have uniformly corresponded
with the invention of some instrument by which the power of the senses
has been increased, or the range of action extended.”--“Physiology of
the Mind,” p. 8. By Henry Maudsley, M.D. New York: D. Appleton & Co.,
1883.
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.
[22] “Let him [the youth] once learn to take a straight shaving off a
plank, or draw a fine curve without faltering, or lay a brick level in
its mortar, and he has learned a multitude of other matters which no
lips of man could ever teach him.”--“Time and Tide,” p. 145. By John
Ruskin, LL.D. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1883.
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]
[23] Mr. James MacAlister, Superintendent of Schools of the City of
Philadelphia, before the American Institute of Instruction at
Saratoga, July 13, 1882.
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]
[24] “The hand is the most marvellous instrument in the world; it is
the necessary complement of the mind in dealing with matter in all its
varied forms. It is the hand that ‘rounded Peter’s dome;’ it is the
hand that carved those statues in marble and bronze, that painted
those pictures in palace and church, which we travel into distant
lands to admire; it is the hand that builds the ships which sail the
sea, laden with the commerce of the world; it is the hand that
constructs the machinery which moves the busy industries of this age
of steam; it is the hand that enables the mind to realize in a
thousand ways its highest imaginings, its profoundest reasonings, and
its most practical inventions.”--Mr. James MacAlister, Superintendent
of Schools of the City of Philadelphia, before the American Institute
of Instruction at Saratoga, July 13, 1882.