HAND AND LEFT-HANDEDNESS. 19 
earliest, to the end of the fifth century of our era, but he collected diligently from numer- 
ous ancient authors, some of whom would otherwise be unknown ; and here he gives us 
the only indication of a belief, however vague, in the existence of a left-handed people. 
Of the occurrence of individual examples of left-handedness, the proofs are ample, from 
the earliest times to the present. Professor Hyrtl, of Vienna, affirms its prevalence among 
the civilised races of Europe in the ratio of only two per cent.; and the number of the 
old Benjamite left-handed slingers, as distinguished from other members of the band of 
twenty-six thousand warriors, did not greatly exceed this. In the ruder conditions of 
society, where combined action is rare, and social habits are less binding, a larger number 
of exceptions to the prevailing usage may be looked for; as the tendency of a high civilis- 
ation must be to diminish its manifestation. But education is powerless to eradicate it 
where it is strongly manifested in early life. My attention has been long familiarly 
directed to it from being myself naturally left-handed ; and the experience of considerably 
more than half acentury enables me to controvert the common belief, on which Dr. Hum- 
phry founds the deduction that the superiority of the right hand is not congenital, but 
acquired, viz., that “the left hand may be trained to as great expertness and strength as 
the right.” On the contrary, my experience accords with that of others in whom invet- 
erate left-handedness exists, in showing the education of a lifetime contending with only 
partial success to overcome an instinctive natural preference. The result has been, as in 
all similar cases, to make me ambidextrous, yet not strictly speaking ambidexterous. 
The importance of this in reference to the question of the source of right-handedness 
is obvious. Mr. James Shaw, by whom the subject has been brought under the notice of 
the British Association, and the Anthropological Institute, remarks in a communication 
to the latter : “ Left-handedness is very mysterious. It seems to set itself quite against 
physiological deductions, and the whole tendency of art and fashion.” Dr. John Evans, 
when commenting on this, and on another paper on “ Left-handedness” by Dr. Muirhead, 
expressed his belief that “ the habit of using the left hand in preference to the right, though 
possibly to some extent connected with the greater supply of blood to one side than the 
other, is more often the result of the manner in which the individual has been carried in 
infancy.” This reason has been frequently suggested ; but if there were any force in it, 
the results to be looked for would rather be an alternation of hands from generation to 
generation. The nurse naturally carries the child on the left arm, with its right side 
toward her breast. All objects presented to it are thus offered to the free left hand ; and 
it is accordingly no uncommon remark that all children are at first left-handed. If their 
training while in the nurse’s arms could determine the habit, such is its undoubted 
tendency; but if so, the left-handed nurses of the next generation would reverse the 
process. Nevertheless the bias towards a preferential use of either hand varies greatly in 
degree. The conclusion I am led to, as the result of long observation is that the pre- 
ferential use of the right hand is natural and instinctive with some persons; that with a 
smaller number an equally strong impulse is felt prompting to the use of the left hand ; 
but that with the great majority right-handedness is mainly the result of education. If 
children are watched in the nursery, it will be found that the left hand is offered little 
less freely than the right. The nurse or mother is constantly transferring the spoon from 
the left to the right hand, correcting the defective courtesy of the proffered left hand, and 
in all ways superinducing right-handedness as a habit. As soon as the child is old enough 
