The sense of touch--“The Feel-Gate” of Bunyan’s famous Town of Mansoul,--is not limited, like the other senses, to one special organ, but pervades the entire body; and in its acute susceptibility to every irritant contact, communicates instantaneously with the vital cerebral centre of the whole nervous system by means of the electric chords or nerves. So effectual is this that “if one member suffer, all the members suffer with it.” Nevertheless the hand is correctly recognised as the active organ of feeling; and by the delicately sensitive and well-trained fingers impressions are promptly conveyed to the brain and to the mind, relative to the qualities of all bodies within reach of the unfailing test of touch. In hearing and seeing the dual organs are in constant co-operation, and the injury of either involves a loss of power. But though we have two hands sensitive to all external impressions, only one of them is habitually recognised as the active agent of the brain; and except in a comparatively small number of cases, this is the hand on the right side of the body. It is surprising that this phenomenon so universally recognised as what may be styled an instinctive attribute of man, should not long since have been traced to its true source. Yet, as will be seen, some among the ablest anatomists have been content to refer it to mere habit, stereotyped by long usage and the exigencies of combined action into a general practice; while others have referred it to the disposition of the viscera, and the place of the heart on the left side. The hand is the universal symbol of amity; at once the organ and the emblem of friendly co-operation and brotherhood. The mystic grip of the freemason is older than the builder’s art. In the gesture-language so largely in use among savage tribes the hands take the place of the tongue; and the relations of the right and left hand acquire fresh significance in the modification of signs. Mr. Garrick Mallery gives the expression of amity among the Otos thus: “The left and right hands are brought to centre of the chest open, then extended, and the left hand, with palm up, is grasped crosswise by right hand with palm down, and held thus.” So in like manner among the Dakotas: “The left hand held horizontal, palm inward, fingers and thumb extended and pointing towards the right, is clasped by the right hand.” In those and other expressive gestures the left hand is employed to indicate the _non ego_: the other than the gesture-maker. [Illustration: SYMBOLIC MONOGRAPH, MORO INSCRIBED ROCK, RIO DE ZUÑI. _To face page 19._]