Introducing the Hand, the First of a Series

   What follows is a series of pieces on the human hand, none after this first one as yet written (and hence uncounted). The underlying assumption is the claim that hands, at the end of arms, to be sure, are in the same league as speech and language in defining what makes a human being. There is an assumption, of course, that all these body parts, hands, like mouths and vocal chords, are controlled by minds, the mysterious products of human brains.

The Handshake

  Là ci darem la mano. Reich’ mir die Hand mein Leben. The hand, here, as it has been through the ages, is the reliable agent of the person to whom it belongs. The history of humans does not turn up another representative of an entire person that can compete with the hand. If we shake hands, persons are to varying degrees bonded: two bodies, two minds, two souls. The handshake performs a significant and complex function.    
  “So what,” is a reasonable response. Do you expect people to kick each other, instead, thus “elevating” the foot? Or, much more plausibly, do you see that meaningful function performed by means of an embrace, a widespread practice in Mexico, among other regions. But even this much more elaborate practice does not do without a role of the hand, since one set mostly includes a clasping between the bodies of the momentary partners, while the others gently pad the backs of the greeters.

   While there are other modes of greeting and symbolizing friendship, such as nodding or bowing at the formal end and the vastly more intimate practice of kissing, the role of hands is surely the most prevalent, with reasons not far to seek. By touching each other in a handshake, the two greeters engage in a moment of intimacy, while by virtue of the fact that hands are located at the end of arms that are able to be extended away from the body, that intimacy does not need to be close.

    Evolution has indeed conferred a huge benefit on human beings converting, in multiple stages, two of our ancestors’ legs into arms and ultimately refining their feet into the much more complex extremities of hands. We have thus reached the subject I here want to talk about: human hands, located as they are, at the end of arms.