20 DANIEL WILSON ON THE RIGHT 
to be affected by such influences, the fastening of its clothes, the handling of knife and 
spoon, and of many other objects in daily use, help to confirm the habit, until the art of 
penmanship is mastered, and with this crowning accomplishment—except in cases of 
strongly marked bias in an opposite direction, —the left hand is relegated to its very 
subordinate place as a mere supplementary organ, to be called into use where the 
privileged member finds occasion for its aid. 
But on the other hand, an exaggerated estimate is formed of the difficulties experi- 
enced by a left-handed person in many of the ordinary actions of life. It is noted by Mr. 
James Shaw that the buttons of our dress, and the hooks and eyes of all female attire, are 
expressly adapted to the right hand. Again, Sir Charles Bell remarks : ‘ We think we 
may conclude, that everything being adapted, in the conveniences of life, to the right 
hand, as for example the direction of the worm of the screw, or of the cutting end of the 
augur, is not arbitrary, but is related to a natural endowment of the body. He who is 
left-handed is most sensible to the advantages of this adaptation, from the opening of the 
parlour door to the opening of a penknife.” This idea, though widely entertained, is to a 
large extent founded on misapprehension. It is undoubtedly true that the habitual use 
of the right hand has controlled the form of many implements, and influenced the arran- 
gements of dress, as well as the social customs of society. The musket is fitted for a 
habitually right-handed people. So, in like manner, the adze, the plane, the gimlet, the 
screw and other mechanical tools, must be adapted to one or the other hand. Scissors, 
snuffers, shears, and other implements specially requiring the action of the thumb and 
fingers, are all made for the right hand. So also is it with the scythe of the reaper. Not 
only the lock of the gun, or rifle, but the bayonet and the cartridge-pouch, are made or 
fitted on the assumption of the right hand being used; and even many arrangements of 
the fastenings of the dress are adapted to this habitual preference of the one hand over 
the other; so that the reversing of button and buttonhole, or hook and eye, is attended 
with marked inconvenience. Yet even in this, much of what is due to habit is ascribed 
to nature. A Canadian friend, familiar in his own earlier years, at an English public 
school and university, with the game of cricket, tells me that when it was introduced for 
the first time into Canada within the last thirty-five years, left-handed batters were 
common in every field; but the immigration of English cricketers has since led, for the 
most part, to the prevailing usage of the mother country. It was not that the batters 
were, as a rule, left-handed ; but that the habit of using the bat on one side or other was 
in the majority of cases so little influenced by any predisposing bias, that it was readily 
acquired in either way. But, giving full weight to all that has been stated here 
as to right-handed implements, what are the legitimate conclusions which it teaches ? 
No doubt an habitually left-handed people would have reversed all this. But if, with 
adze, plane, gimlet, and screw, scythe, reaping hook, scissors and snuffers, rifle, bayonet, 
and all else—even to the handle of the parlour door, and the hooks and buttons of his 
dress—daily enforcing on the left-handed man a preference for the right hand, he 
nevertheless persistently adheres to the left hand, the cause of this must lie deeper than 
a mere habit induced in the nursery. 
It is a misapprehension, however, to suppose that the left-handed man labours under 
any conscious disadvantage from the impediments thus created by the usage of the 
majority. With rare exceptions, habit so entirely accustoms him to the requisite action, 
