For
the hands are instruments or organs, and the invariable plan of nature
in distributing the organs is to give each to such animal as can
make use of it; nature acting in this matter as any prudent man
would do. For it is a better plan to take a person who is already a
flute-player and give him a flute, than to take one who possesses a
flute and teach him the art of flute-playing. For nature adds that
which is less to that which is greater and more important, and not
that which is more valuable and greater to that which is less.
Seeing then that such is the better course, and seeing also that of
what is possible nature invariably brings about the best, we must
conclude that man does not owe his superior intelligence to his hands,
but his hands to his superior intelligence. For the most intelligent
of animals is the one who would put the most organs to use; and the
hand is not to be looked on as one organ but as many; for it is, as it
were, an instrument for further instruments. This instrument,
therefore,-the hand-of all instruments the most variously serviceable,
has been given by nature to man, the animal of all animals the most
capable of acquiring the most varied handicrafts.
Much in error, then, are they who say that the construction of man
is not only faulty, but inferior to that of all other animals;
seeing that he is, as they point out, bare-footed, naked, and
without weapon of which to avail himself.
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