We readily acknowledge that he who is born blind can have no perception of visible objects, and that the same negation may be extended to the other senses when defective: thus, if man had been created without hands, and, consequently, without the acute organ of touch, which resides in the extremities of these members, we must at least have been strangers to the "cloud-capt towers, the gorgeous palaces, and the solemn temples" which he has reared. Had the upper extremities of the human body terminated at the wrist, such a man as Phidias might have existed, but his occupation would have been unknown. Thus truncated, how would the fleet have been constructed which reaped the laurel at the Nile, at Copenhagen, and Trafalgar? The eternal city could not have existed, nor would our own metropolis have had a being. If we reflect for an instant, we shall perceive that all the conveniences we enjoy, all the arts we practise, and the sciences which elevate and dignify our nature, could never have been realised in a handless community. Speech might indeed have prevailed, but its record could not have been established, and intelligent sounds would only have served to breathe forth the lamentations of misery and despair, or the accents of discontent. We must have remained naked, and perished from the inclemency of weather: man would have owed "the worm no silk, the beast no hide, the sheep no wool." It would be superfluous to pursue this subject further, as the reader has only to consider the superior enjoyments, and accumulated monuments, of art and of wisdom, which the mind of man has produced by the agency of his hand. "Molto opro egli col senno ed con la mano."