22 DANIEL WILSON ON THE RIGHT 
handed implement, carefully fashioned so as to adapt it to the grasp of a very small hand, 
and is far more incapable of use by a left-handed shearer than a mower’s scythe. Its 
peculiar form is shown in an illustration which accompanies Dr. Keller’s account ; and, 
in noting that the handle is designed for a right-handed person, he adds: “Even in the 
Stone Age, it has already been noticed that the implements in use at that time were fitted 
for the right hand only.” But, if so, the same adaptability was available for the left- 
handed workman, wherever no necessity for coéperation required him to conform to the 
usage of the majority. Instances of left-handed carpenters who have provided themselves 
with benches adapted to their special use have come under my notice. Iam also told of a 
scythe fitted to the requirements of a left-handed mower, who must have been content to 
work alone; and reference has already been made to sets of golfing drivers and clubs 
for the convenience of left-handed golfers. 
The truly left-handed, equally with the larger percentage of those who may be 
designated truly right-handed, are exceptionally dextrous ; and to the former the idea that 
the instinctive impulse which influences their preference is a mere acquired habit, trace- 
able mainly to some such bias as the mode of carrying in the nurse’s arms in infancy, is 
utterly untenable. The value of personal experience in determining some of the special 
points involved in this inquiry is obvious, and will excuse a reference to my own obser- 
vations, as confirmed by a comparison with those of others equally affected, such as 
Professor Edward 8. Morse, Dr. R. A. Reeve, a former pupil of my own, and my friend, Dr. 
John Rae, the Arctic explorer. The last remarked in a letter to me, confirming the idea 
of hereditary transmission: “ Your case as to left-handedness seems very like my own. 
My mother was left-handed, and very neat-handed also. My father had a crooked little 
finger on the left-hand. So have I.” Referring to personal experience, I may note as 
common to myself with other thoroughly left-handed persons, that, with an instinctive 
preference for the left-hand, which equally resisted remonstrance, proffered rewards, and 
coercion, I nevertheless learned to use the pen in the right-hand, apparently with no 
greater effort than other boys who pass through the preliminary stages of the art of pen- 
manship. In this way the right hand was thoroughly educated, but the preferential 
instinct remained. The slate-pencil, the chalk, and pen-knife, were still invariably used 
in the left hand, in spite of much opposition on the part of teachers; and in later 
years, when a taste for drawing has been cultivated with some degree of success, the 
pencil and brush are nearly always used in the left hand. At a comparatively early age 
the awkwardness of using the spoon and knife at table, in the left hand, was perceived 
and overcome. Yet even now, when much fatigued, or on occasion of any unusual diffi- 
culty in carving a joint, the knife is instinctively transferred to the left hand. Alike in 
every case where unusual force is required, as in driving a large nail, wielding a heavy 
tool, or striking a blow with the fist, and in any operation demanding unusual delicacy, 
the left hand is employed. Thus, for example, though the pen is invariably used in the 
right hand in penmanship, the crow-quill and etching needle are no less uniformly em- 
ployed in the left hand. Hence, accordingly, on proceeding to apply the test of the hand 
to the demotic writing of the Egytians, by copying rapidly the Turin enchorial papyrus 
already referred to, first with the right hand and then with the left, while some of the- 
characters were more accurately rendered as to slope, thickening of lines, and curve, with 
the one hand, and some with the other, I found it difficult to decide on the whole which 
