The hand : its mechanism and vital endowments as evincing design / by Sir Charles Bell.

  • Bell, Charles, Sir, 1774-1842.
Date:
1852
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The hand : its mechanism and vital endowments as evincing design / by Sir Charles Bell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    resistance is a necessary condition, since it is thrown, together with the power of the hand, on the weight to he raised; and he will add that the multiphcation of wheels does not alter the principle of action, which every one may see in the simple lever, to result from the resistance of the fulcrum or point, on wliich it rests. Now grant that man’s body is a machine, where are the points of resistance ? are they not in the ground we stand upon ? This leads us to inquire by what property we stand. Is it not by the weight of the body, or, in other words, by the Attraction of the earth ? The terms attraction, or gravitation lead at once to the philosophy of the question. We stand because the body has weight, and a resistance in proportion to the matter of the animal frame and the magnitude of the globe itself. We need not stop at present to observe the adjustment of the strength of the frame, the sohdity of the bones, the elasticity of the joints, and the power of the muscles, to the weight of the whole. Our attention is directed to the rela- tions which the frame has to the Earth we are placed upon. Some Philosophers who have considered the matter curiously, have said, that if man were translated bodily to another Planet, and that planet were smaller than the earth, he would be too hght, and he would walli hke one wading in deep water: that on the contrary, if the planet were larger, the attraction of his body