we might indeed have preserved by
tradition, the names of Homer, Virgil, Cicero, Shakspeare, and Milton;
but their works,--those majestic columns which now support the temple of
fame, would have perished, had there not been a contrivance to record
the productions of their genius. This art, of conferring permanence on
the significant sounds of the human voice, has taught us to appreciate
and revere the taste and wisdom of our predecessors; and to feel, that
although their bodies are buried in peace, yet their names live for
evermore:--but more especially this contrivance has preserved the laws
of nations, and above all other blessings, has transmitted, in the
Sacred Volume, the commandments of the living God.

From the brief notice which has been bestowed on this subject, it will
be seen, that man could have made but inconsiderable advances in the
scale of intellectual progression, by speech alone;--that how much
soever this faculty might have elevated him above animals, by endowing
his perceptions with intelligence, and rendering his thoughts the
circulating medium of his community; yet had he remained without the
power of registering the edicts of his mind, language would have expired
in its cradle; and as the body mingles with its mother-earth,
intelligent sound would have been blended and lost in the medium that
produced it.

The next subject to be considered, (and its importance will justify an
ample review, and minute consideration,) is the hand; a member which may
be considered, with some trifling exceptions, as exclusively bestowed on
man. The wonderful construction of this part of the human body might be
sufficiently exemplified by its achievements. Its anatomy has not,
hitherto, been so minutely investigated, as to demonstrate the almost
infinite variety of motions to which it is adapted; nor has it been
sufficiently compared with the somewhat analogous structure and function
in certain of the simiae, in the claw of the parrot, or with the
proboscis of the elephant.

At the extremity of the fingers, in the human hand, and on their inner
surface, resides the organ of Touch; a sense, of which animals are
comparatively deficient. Touch, is distinguished from feeling, which it
is the general property of all the nerves to convey, and this feeling is
likewise accompanied with consciousness. Thus pain may be felt in the
different organs of sense, without any corresponding perception, which
it is their separate offi