hands at the end of his legs as well as of his arms. Nevertheless, he
is not on that account better off than we are, but quite the contrary.
I will explain this to you presently.

To return to our subject. You see that it was necessary, before saying
anything about the mouth, to consider the hand, which is the mouth's
purveyor. Before the cook lights the fires the maid must go to market,
must she not? And it is a very valuable maid that we have here: what
would become of us without her?

If we were in the habit of giving thought to everything, we should
never even gather a nut without being grateful to the Providence which
has provided us with the thumb, by means of which we are able to do
it so easily.

But however well I may have expressed it, I am by no means sure, after
all, that I have succeeded in showing you clearly, how absolutely
necessary our hand is to us in eating, and why it has the honor to
stand at the beginning of the history of what we eat.

It still appears to you, I suspect, that even if you were to lose the
use of your hands you would not, for all that, let yourself die of
hunger.

This is because you have not attended to another circumstance, which
nevertheless demands your notice--namely, that from one end of the
world to the other, quantities of hands are being employed in providing
you with the wherewithal to eat.

To go on further: Have you any idea how many hands have been put in