SCIENCE IN THE INDUSTRIAL WORLD 



rows of a ploughed field, and which, therefore, received 

 the name of the boustrophedon or in an awkward 

 literal translation oxwise. This plan had certain 

 conveniences. The immediate contiguity of the end of 

 one line with the beginning of the next makes it easy 

 for the eye to follow on without danger of skipping. The 

 reversed character of the letters and words of each al- 

 ternate line is a little puzzling at first, but presents no 

 difficulties to the practised eye. It is, at least, open to 

 question whether this method might not have been 

 adopted for the printed page, particularly where the 

 lines are long, with distinct advantage. Be that as it 

 may, however, the ancient scribe decided against the 

 plan in course of time, and boustrophedon writing 

 appears to have gone out of vogue altogether at 

 least four or five centuries before the beginning of 

 our era. 



It seems so natural for us to write from left to right, 

 that the selection of this direction in preference to the 

 other seems to call for no explanation. If explanation 

 were required, the fact that the majority of scribes are 

 right-handed seems an all-sufficient one. Yet, the 

 equally familiar fact that the vast literature of Arabia, 

 Turkey, and Persia, has been a continuous writ- 

 ing in a flowing script that runs from right to left, 

 robs this explanation of its plausibility, unless, indeed, it 

 can be shown that the oriental scribes are either am- 

 bidextrous, or left-handed; a suggestion for which there 

 is, apparently, no evidence. Whatever the motives ac- 

 tuating the selection, the fact remains that oriental 

 writing as a rule is inscribed from right to left, occiden- 



[114] 



