200 RIGHTHANDEDNESS. 



is constructed with a view to the same. Not only the lock of the gun, 

 or rifle, but the bayonet and the cartridge-pouch, are made or fitted on 

 the assumption of the right hand being used ; and even the arrange, 

 ments of the fastenings of the dress are adapted to this habitual pre- 

 ference of the one hand over the other; so that the reversing of button 

 and button-hole, or hook and eye, is attended with marked inconvenience. 

 Yet even in this, much of which is due to habit is ascribed to nature. 

 A Canadian friend, familiar in his own earlier years, at an English 

 public school and university, with the game of cricket, tells me that 

 when it was introduced for the first time into Canada, within the last 

 twenty years, left-handed batters were common in every field ; but the 

 immigration of English cricketers has since introduced, for the most 

 part, the prevailing usage of the mother country. It was not that the 

 batters were, as a rule, left-handed; but that the habit of using the bat 

 on one side or other was in the majority of cases so little influenced by 

 any predisposing bias, that it was readily acquired in either way. 



It is obvious that education has much to do with a full-developed 

 right-handedness. But a very slight bias, traceable to organic struc- 

 ture, may have sufficed to prompt the preference at first, and so to 

 originate the law of dexterity. The bilateral symmetry of our struc- 

 ture, so general in animal life, seems at first sight opposed to any 

 inequality of action in symmetrical organs. But anatomical research 

 reveals at a glance the deviation of internal organic structure from such 

 seemingly balanced symmetry. Moreover, right or left-handedness is 

 not limited to the hand, but equally aifects the lower limb; as may be 

 seen in foot-ball, skating, in the training of the opera-dancer, &c. ; and 

 eminent anatomists and physiologists have affirmed the existence of a 

 greater development throughout the whole right side of the body. Sir 

 Charles Bell says : " The left side is not only the weaker, in regard to 

 muscular strength, but also in its vital or constitutional properties. The 

 development of the organs of action and motion is greatest upon the 

 right side, as may at any time be ascertained by measurement, or the 

 testimony of the tailor or shoemaker." He adds, indeed, " certainly, 

 this superiority may be said to result from the more frequent exertion 

 of the right hand; but the peculiarity extends to the constitution also, 

 and disease attacks the left extremities more frequently than the right." 



With lefthandedness all this is reversed ; and it has accordingly been 

 regarded as the result of abnormal development. One supposition is 

 that it depends on the relative position of the viscera, and the conse- 



