40 DANIEL WILSON ON THE RIGHT 
instinctive preference for either hand must be rare; and is likely to elude all but the most 
watchful observers. 
A paper was communicated by Dr. Delaunay to the Anthropological Society of France, 
on the subject of right-handedness. I only know of it by an imperfect notice, in which 
he is reported to look on the preferential use of the right hand as a differentiation arising 
from natural selection, while he regards ambidexterity as a mere “survival.” But Dr. 
Pye-Smith long ago remarked that “it is clear that in the progress of civilisation one or 
other hand would come to be selected for the more characteristic human actions for which 
only one is necessary, such as wielding a pen or other weapon;” but he recognises the 
insufficiency of the suggestion, and adds in a foot note: “The difficult point is to guess by 
what process the right rather than the left hand has been so universally preferred.” He 
then glances at possible guidance to be derived from the study of the habits of savage 
tribes ; though still the old difficulty recurs; and he thus proceeds; “In default of any 
better suggestion, might one suggest an hypothesis of the origin of right-handedness from 
modes of fighting, more by way of illustration than as at all adequate in itself? Ifa 
hundred of our ambidextrous ancestors made the step in civilisation of inventing a shield, 
we may suppose that half would carry it on the right arm and fight with the left, the 
other half on the left and fight with the right. The latter would certainly, in the long 
run, escape mortal wounds better than the former, and thus a race of men who fought. 
with the right hand would gradually be developed by a process of natural selection.” To 
this idea of right-handedness as one of the results of a survival of the fittest, Dr. Delaunay 
adds the statement, professedly based on facts which he has accumulated, that ambidex- 
terity is common among idiots. The results noted probably amount to no more than the 
negative condition of general imbecility, in which the so-called ambidexterity of the idiot 
involves, not an exceptional skill in the left hand equalising it with the right, but only a 
succession of feeble and often aimless actions manifesting an equal lack of dexterity in 
either hand. Where left-handedness is strongly developed, it is, on the contrary, not 
only accompanied with more than average dexterity in the organ thus specialised ; but 
also with a command of the use of the right hand, acquired by education, which gives 
the individual an advantage over the great majority of right-handed men. The surprise 
occasionally manifested at any display of dexterity by left-handed performers, as though 
it were accomplished under unusual disadvantages, is altogether unjustified. In reality, a 
strongly developed left-handedness is, equally with a strongly developed right-handedness, 
an indication of exceptional dexterity. Such skill as that of the left-handed slingers of 
the tribe of Benjamin is in no way exceptional. All truly left-handed, as well as all 
truly right-handed persons, are more likely to be dextrous than those who are unconscious 
of any strong impulse to the use of either hand. The bias, whether to the right or the 
left, is, I feel assured, the result of special organic aptitude. With the majority no well- 
defined bias betrays any unwonted power, and they merely follow in this, as in so much 
else, the practice of the greater number. But there is no such difference between the two 
hands as to justify the extent to which, with the great majority, one is allowed to become 
a passive and nearly useless member. The left hand ought to be educated from the first 
no less than the right, instead of leaving its training to be effected, imperfectly and with 
great effort, in later life, to meet some felt necessity. Wherever the early and persistent 
cultivation of the full use of both hands has been accomplished, the result is greater 
