It does both coarse and fine work.
Let us look at some things that the hand can do. See the blacksmith wielding the heavy hammer; how strongly his hand grasps the handle! See how it is done. The fingers and thumb are bent by those large muscles that are up in the arm. Now these same fingers, that grasp the hammer so strongly, and do this heavy work, can be trained to do work of the lightest and finest kind. They can take hold of the pen and write. They can move the tool of the engraver, making those fine lines that you sometimes see.
In the machines that man makes there is no such changing from coarse, heavy work to that which is fine and delicate. A machine that does heavy work does that only, and one that does fine work does that only. No man ever made a machine that would pull a large rope one moment, and the next pull a fine thread, and do the one just as well as the other. But that wonderful machine, the hand, can do this. It can grasp the rope firmly, and yet can take between its thumb and finger a thread so fine that you can hardly see it.
Variety of things done by the hand.
But the difference in the work of the hand is not merely in coarseness and fineness. It can do a great many different kinds of coarse work and a great many different kinds of fine work. The hand works very differently with different things. See how differently it manages a rope, a hammer, a spade, a hoe, a knife and fork, etc. It takes hold of them in different ways to work them. And then, as to fine work, how differently it manages a pen, an engraver’s tool, a thread, a needle, etc.
If you watch people as they do different things, you can get some idea of the variety of the work that the hand can perform. See how differently the fingers are continually placed as one is playing on an instrument. You can see very well what a variety of shapes the hand can be put into if you observe a deaf and dumb person talking with his fingers. On the following page is a representation of the different ways in which the letters are made.
Variety of shapes which the hand takes in the deaf and dumb alphabet.
The most common things that it does wonderful.
A buttoning machine.