LEFTHANDEDNESS. 485 



their action is applied are rarely of a nature to invite special atten- 

 tion to them. There is, however, an instinctive tendency with many, 

 if not indeed with the majority, to use one foot in preference to the 

 other. In football, for example, it is not with most players a matter 

 of mere ch^^nce which foot will be used in starting the ball. Possibly 

 the same reason may help to account for the invariable tendency of 

 a blindfold walker to deviate to one side or the other. It is scarcely 

 possible to walk in a straight line with the eyes shut. The one leg 

 apparently tends to outwalk the other. 



In summing up the whole, it appears that lefthandedness is 

 inherited and transmitted, though in an irregular manner and with 

 varying intensity ; that the range of the influence, to whatever source 

 we may trace it, affects other organs of the same side only partially 

 and uncertainly; but that, wherever lefthandedness is strongly 

 developed, it is accompanied by more than average dexterity in the 

 organ thus specialized. The full use of both hands, however, largely 

 depends on education. The left hand is, with the majority of man- 

 kind, systematically reduced to the condition of a comparatively 

 useless member of the body, alike contrary to reason, and without 

 any justification either in the anatomy of the hand or in the require- 

 ments of the mind. Whei-ever the early and persistent cultivation 

 of the full use of both hands has been accomplished, the result is 

 greater efiiciency without any counteracting awkwardness or defect. 

 The experience of every thoroughly lefthanded person shows the 

 possibility of training both hands to a capacity for responding to the 

 mind with promptness and skill ; yet at the same time it is none the 

 less apparent that in cases of true lefthandedness there is an organic 

 specialization which no enforced habit can wholly supersede. 



