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THE CAI^ADIAN JOURNAL. 



NE\V SERIES. 



No. LXXV.— FEBKUAKY, 1872. 



RIGHTHANDEDNESS. 



BY DANIEL WILSON, LL.D., 



PROFESSOR OF HISTORY AND EifGLISH LITERATURE IN UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, TORONTO. 



{Read before the Canadian Institute 21 th January, 1871.) 



One after another of the assumed specialities of man, and his claims 

 to a distinct classification in animated nature, is being ruthlessly swept 

 away, in the marvellous revolutions of modern science. Hiichel dis- 

 cusses the steps by which he became a biped. Darwin follows down, 

 from '' an extremely remote period, his half-human ancestors," trans- 

 forming the imitative growl of the first unusually wise ape, into the 

 varied tones and cadences of the impassioned human orator. Cuvier's 

 assumption for man of a distinct order, equally apart from Quadrumana, 

 and Cheiroptera, as from Brachiopoda or Gasteropoda, has long since 

 been challenged; and as for his JBimana, it is less in favour now than 

 his classification of the medieval Devil, by means of the indispensable 

 horns, tail and hoofs, as " a graminivorous animal." The most con- 

 ceded to his Bimana in the levelling process of scientific revolution, is 

 a place in the same order with Quadrumana, under a common title of 

 Primates. Can anything more definite be made of an order of Unimana ? 

 Is man, with only rare and purely exceptional cases, right-handed • 

 and does he alone, and invariably, manifest this preferential use of the 

 right limb ? The answer to those questions rany prove to have a value 

 in relation to more comprehensive enquiries. 



