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]