Chapter 2. Prehension

Chapter 1. Introduction
‘But between the mind and the hand the relationship is not
so simple as that of a master to a humble servant ... Gestures
may continually reflect the inner feelings. (Conversely,)
hands have their gifts inscribed in their very shape and
design ... The mind makes the hand, the hand makes the
mind.”
--H. Focillon (1947)
grasp: v.t. 1. to seize and hold by clasping or embracing with
the fingers or arms. 2. to take hold of eagerly or greedily; seize.
3. to seize mentally; to comprehend; as, to grasp the question. n.
1. the grip or seizure of the hand. 2. possession; hold. 3. reach;
the power of seizing. 4. understanding; comprehension;
intellectual capacity. 5. the part of a thing to be held or grasped,
as the grasp of a sword or of a fishing rod. From the ME.
graspen, grapen, grapien, from AS. grapian, to grasp. (Webster’s
New Twentieth Century Unabridged Dictionary, 2nd Edition.)
prehension: n. 1. a taking hold a seizing, as with the hand or
other limb. 2. mental apprehension. From the Latin prehendere,
to take or seize. (Webster’s New Twentieth Century Unabridged
Dictionary, 2nd Edition.)
What do human hands do? Look around you. All around are ex-
amples of the power of the human hand: the construction of buildings,
the designing of furniture, the intricacy of tool design, the taming of
electricity. No animal on Earth shapes its world as much as we do.
Not only can we envision the process of fabrication, but we can also
implement those designs, through the power of the brain working to-
gether with the human hand
The human hand is a highly complex structure that in many ways
defies understanding. Questions abound as to whether its beauty
comes from its own internal architecture or else from its controller, the
human central nervous system (CNS). As the famed surgeon
Frederick Wood-Jones (1920) said, “The difference between the hand
of a man and the hand of a monkey lies not so much in the movements
which the arrangement of muscles, bones and joints make possible ...
but in the purposive volitional movements which under ordinary cir-
cumstances the animal habitually exercises.”
3