1907.] Dexterity and the Bend Sinister. 628 



WEEKLY EYENINCt MEETING, 



Friday, May 3, 11)U7. 



The Right Hox. Earl Cathcart, D.L. J.P., Manager, 

 in the Chair. 



Sir James Crichtox-Browxe, M.D. LL.D. F.R.S. Treas.R.I. 



Dexterity and the Bend Sinister. 



There are periodical ontbreaks of ambidexterity, or rather, I should 

 say, of feverish attempts to persuade us to adopt ambidexterity or to 

 force it upon us. An innate love of symmetry, which Ruskin refers 

 to as one of the essential constituents of beauty and a symbol of 

 abstract justice, a correlative aversion to lop-sidedness which suggests 

 alDuormality, the hope of duplicating the special aptitudes to which 

 the right hand has attained, and the ever-recurring craving for some 

 new thing, have, from time to time during the last 2000 years, led to 

 revolts against the existing state of matters and to efforts to establish 

 what has been regarded as a better system of government in manual 

 affairs. 



Plato, I believe, included in his idealism the perfect equipoise of 

 the two sides of the body ; and, skipping the innumerable eruptions 

 of ambidextral enthusiasm" since his day, down to thirty years ago, I 

 may remind you that at that time the late Mr. Charles Reade again 

 stirred up widespread interest in the subject by a series of articles 

 entitled " The Coming Man." In those articles the brilliant novelist 

 denounced dextral pre-eminence as wicked and against nature, the 

 outcome of the foolish practices of credulous mothers, silly nurses 

 and hide-bound schoolmasters on our sacred bodies in defenceless 

 childhood. He ridiculed biological science, especially as represented 

 by my profession, and promised rich rewards to those who would 

 dihgently cultivate either-handedness. But somehow in his passionate 

 philanthropy Mr. Charles Reade overstepped the mark, rode rough- 

 shod over facts, and indulged in blatant exaggeration and transparent 

 fallacies ; and so his advocacy failed, his campaign proved abortive, 

 and " The Coming Man " did not come. For about a quarter of a 

 century we were left undisturbed in the enjoyment of our lop-sided- 

 ness, but some five years ago ambidexterity again popped up, and a 

 new crusade on its behalf is now being carried on under influential 

 auspices. We have now an Ambidextral Culture Society ; big books 



