Note c — BOOK V.
Reading edition
Ut autem sapientissimum animalium est Homo, sic & Manus sunt organa sapienti animali convenientia. Non enim quia Manus habuit, propterea est sapientissimum, ut Anaxagoras dicebat; sed quia sapientissimum erat, propter hoc Manus habuit, ut rectissimè censuit Aristoteles. Non enim Manus ipse hominem artes docuerunt, sed Ratio. Manus autem ipsa sunt artium organa, &c. Galen. de Us. Part. L. 1. c. 3. After which, in the rest of this first Book, and part of the second, he considers the Particulars of the Hand, in order to enquire, as he saith, ch. 5. Num eam omnino Constitutionem habeas [manus] quâ meliorem aliam habere non potuit.
Of this Part, (and indeed of the other Parts of human Bodies) he gives so good an Account, that I confess I could not but admire the Skill of that ingenious and famed Heathen. For an Example, (because it is a little out of the Way,) I shall pitch upon his Account of the different Length of the Fingers, L. 1. 2. 24. The Reason of this Mechanism, he saith, is, That the Tops of the Fingers may come to an Equality, cùm magnas aliquas moles in circuitu comprehendunt, & cùm in seipsis humidum vel parvum corpus continere conantur.——Apparent verò in unam circuli circumferentiam convenire Digiti quinque in actionibus hujusmodi maximè quando exquisitè sphæricum corpus comprehendunt. And this Evenness of the Fingers Ends, in grasping sphærical, and other round Bodies, he truly enough saith, makes the Hold the firmer. And it seems a noble and pious Design he had in so strictly surveying the Parts of Man’s Body, which take in his own translated Words, Cùm multa namque esset apud veteres, tam Medicos, quàm Philosophos de utilitate particularum dissensio (quidam enim corpora nostra nullius gratiâ esse facta existimant, nullâque omnino arte; alii autem & alicujus gratiâ, & artificiosè,——) primum quidem tantæ hujus dissensionis κριτήριον invenire studui: deinde verò & unam aliquam universalem methodum constituere, quâ singularum partium corporis, & eorum quæ illis accidunt utilitatem invenire possemus. Ibid. cap. 8.