Page:First steps in mental growth (1906).djvu/33

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CHAPTER II

DEVELOPMENT OF HAND AND ARM MOVEMENTS

Many writers, ancient and modern, have attributed man's dominion in the earth to his possession of the admirable mechanism of the human hand. Sir Charles Bell wrote "A Treatise, The Hand, its Mechanism" illustrating the thesis, "that although the superiority of man is in his mind…the Hand supplies all instruments, and by its correspondence with the intellect gives him universal dominion."[1] And Darwin expressed the opinion that, "Man could not have attained his present dominant position in the world without the use of his hands, which are so admirably adapted to act in obedience to his will."[2] One remembers also Fiske's generalization, "that all human art is the increment of the power of the hand." The same thought is expressed more specifically by Burk, as follows:—

"Trace the evolution of the higher human intelligence as we will,—from tool-making and tool-using to modern invention, from manual sign-making to speech, from hut building to architecture, from picture writing to painting, from bizarre
  1. Bell, The Hand, its Mechanism, etc., pp. 40, 157, Revised Edition.
  2. Darwin, The Descent of Man, Vol. I, p. 135, Appleton Edition, 1871.

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