is
subject further, as the reader has only to consider the superior
enjoyments, and accumulated monuments, of art and of wisdom, which the
mind of man has produced by the agency of his hand.

"Molto opro egli col senno ed con la mano."

However it may gratify the pride of man, to find himself gifted with
intellectual endowments of a higher order, and distinguished as the lord
of creation; yet he must, on reflection, regard this superiority as a
"painful pre-eminence." The possession of speech, and hands, the prompt
executors of his will, have enabled him to become the perpetrator of
crimes to which the tribes of animals are strangers. Language has
exclusively furnished man with the means of promulgating the result of
his perceptions and thoughts: he thereby becomes capable of
communicating to others, that which he has observed, or the opinions he
has formed; and so highly has this accuracy of relation been estimated,
in all periods of civilised society, that it has been proudly
denominated the truth. But the possession of the same faculty of speech,
has often induced him to relate that which never occurred, or to disown
that which actually took place; and this assertion or denial has been
severely reprobated and stigmatised by the appellation of a lie. It is
unnecessary to enumerate the catalogue of the articulate vices which the
tongue can commit, or sully the dignity of human nature, by the
recollection that its lord has been convicted of perjury, slander,
blasphemy, and libel. Thus, the hand, this admirable instrument, the
elaborations of which excite our wonder and delight, whether we
contemplate the chiselled monuments of Grecian art, or the curious
manufactures of modern days,--all that is tasteful in art, or auxiliary
to science,--even this plastic and creative member, the faithful notary
of thought,--becomes the prostituted engine of the vilest fraud, or
foulest atrocity. The same hand that fashioned the Minerva of the
Parthenon might have picked a lock, or directed a dagger. It will be
found, on an accurate investigation, that all laws, which are the VOICE
of those whom we have delegated, or who may have assumed such power, and
which are recorded by the hand, are principally directed to the lesions
against individuals or society, which proceed from speech, or are
perpetrated by the hand.

FOOTNOTES:

[2] It must be felt by the reader that all the epithets, which can be
applied to designate this su