HAND AND LEFT-HANDEDNESS. 13 
dependent on the recognition of right and left-handedness ; and this is no less apparent 
among the Romans than the Greeks. It is set forth in the most unmusical of Horace’s 
hexameters : “Ille sinistrorsum, hic dextrorsum abit ;” and finds its precise elucidation 
. from many independent sources, in the allusions of the poets, in the works of sculp- 
tors, and in decorations of fictile ware. The determination of the actual right and left 
of the Greeks and Romans, as of other nations, is of importance, in order to ascertain if 
they were the same as our own. But the true direction of the Hebrew right and left has 
a special significance, in view of the fact that whilst the great class of Aryan languages, 
including the ancient Sanskrit, Greek and Latin, appear to have been written from left to 
right, and the same characteristic is common to the whole alphabets and writings of India: 
all the Semitic languages, except the Ethiopic, are written from right to left. Habit 
has so largely affected our current handwriting, and modified its forms into those best 
adapted for rapid and continuous execution in the one direction, that its reversal at once 
suggests the idea of a left-handed people. But there is no true ground for this. So long 
as each character was separately drawn, and when, moreover, they were pictorial or ideo- 
graphic, it was, in reality, more natural to begin at the right, or nearer side, of the papyrus 
or tablet, than to pass over to the left. The forms of all written characters are largely 
affected by their mode of use, as is abundantly illustrated in the transformation of the 
Egyptian ideographs in the later demotic writing. The forms of the old Semitic alphabet, 
like the Egyptian hieroglyphics. are specially adapted to cutting on stone. The square 
Hebrew characters are of much later date; but they also, like the uncials of early 
Christian manuscripts, were executed singly, and therefore could be written as easily 
from right to left as in a reverse order. The oldest alphabets indicate a special adapta- 
tion for monumental inscriptions. The Runic characters of northern Europe owe their 
peculiar form apparently to them being primarily cut on wood. When papyrus leaves 
were substituted for stone, a change was inevitable ; but the direction of the writing 
only becomes significant in reference to a current hand. The Greek fashion of 
boustrophedon, or alternating like the course of oxen in ploughing, illustrates the 
natural process of beginning at the side nearest to the hand; nor did either this, or the 
still earlier mode of writing in columns, as with the ancient Egyptians, or the Chinese, 
present any impediment, so long as it was executed in detached characters. But so soon as 
the reed or quill, with the coloured pigment, began to supersede the chisel, the hieratic 
writing assumed a modified form; and when it passed into the later demotic hand- 
writing, with its seemingly arbitrary script, the same influences were brought into 
play which control the modern penman in the slope, direction, and force of his stroke. 
One important exception, however, still remained. Although, as in writing Greek, the 
tendency towards the adoption of tied letters was inevitable, yet to the last the enchorial 
or demotic writing was mainly executed in detached characters, and does not, therefore, 
constitute a true current hand-writing, such as in our own continuous penmanship 
leaves no room for doubt as to the hand by which it was executed. Any sufficiently 
ambidextrous penman, attempting to copy a piece of modern current writing with either 
hand, would determine beyond all question its right-handed execution. But no such 
certain result is found on applying the same test to the Egyptian demotic. I have tried 
it on two of the Louvre demotic MSS. and a portion of a Turin papyrus, and find that 
they can be copied with nearly equal dexterity with either hand. Some of the characters 
