HAND AND LEFT-HANDEDNESS. 9 
The inferior relation of the left to the right hand was also indicated in the use of the 
former for lower, and the latter for higher numbers beyond ten. In reckoning with their 
fingers, both Greeks and Romans counted on the left hand as far as a hundred, then on the 
right hand to two hundred, and so on alternately, the even numbers being always 
reckoned on the right hand. The poet Juvenal refers to this, in his tenth Satire, where, 
in dwelling on the attributes of age, he speaks of the centenarian, “ who counts his years 
on his right hand : ”— 
“ Felix nimirum, qui tot per secula mortem 
Distulit, atque suos jam dextra computat annos, 
Quique novum toties mustum bibit.” À 
À curious allusion, by Tacitus, in the first book of his History, serves to show that the 
German barbarians beyond the Alps no less clearly recognised the significance of the 
right hand, as that which was preferred, and accepted as the more honourable member. 
The Lingones, a Belgian tribe, had sent presents to the legions, as he narrates; and in 
accordance with ancient usage, gave as the symbolical emblem of friendship, two right 
hands clasped together. “ Miserat civitas Lingonum vetere instituto dona legionibus, 
dextras, hospitii insigne.” The dextræ are represented on a silver quinarius of Julius 
Cæsar, thus described in Ackerman’s “Catalogue of rare and unedited Roman Coins,” 
“ PAX. 8. C. Female head. Rev. L. AEMILIVS. BVCA. III. VIR. Two hands joined.” ! 
Other evidence of a different kind confirms the recognition and preferential use of the 
right hand among our Teutonic ancestors from the remotest period. Dr. Richard Lepsius, 
in following out an ingenious analysis of the primitive names for the numerals, and the 
sources of their origin, traces from the common Sanskrit root daga, Greek déxa, through the 
Gothic taihun, the hunda, as in tva hunda, two hundred. He next points out the resem- 
blance between the Gothic hunda, and handus, i.e. “the hand,’ showing that this is no 
accidental agreement, but that the words are etymologically one and the same. The 
A.S. hund, a hundred, originally meant only “ten,” and was prefixed to numerals above 
twenty, as hund eahtatig, eighty, etc. 
. Thus far philological evidence clearly points to a very wide prevalence of the recog- 
nition of right-handedness ; and when we turn from this to the oldest sources of direct 
historical evidence, the references abundantly confirm the same conclusions. More than 
one allusion in the “ Book of Judges” show that the skill of the left-handed among the 
tribe of Benjamin was specially noted ; while at the same time, the very form of the record 
marks the attribute as exceptional; and all the more so as occurring in the tribe whose 
patronymic—ben yamin, the son of the right hand,—so specially indicates the idea of 
honour and dignity constantly associated with the right hand throughout the Hebrew 
Scriptures. When, as we read in the “ Book of Judges,” the Lord raised up a deliverer of 
Israel from the oppression of Eglon, King of Moab, Ehad, the son of Gera, was a Benja- 
mite, a man left-handed. He accordingly fashioned for himself a two-edged dagger which 
he girt under his raiment upon his right thigh ; and thus armed, he presented himself as 
the bearer of a present from the children of Israel to the King, and sought a private inter- 
view, saying: “I have a secret errand unto thee, O King.” The special fitness of the left- 

1 Ackerman i, 106. 
Sec. IL., 1886. 2. 
