EIGHTHANDEDNESS. 207 



manipulation and the use of tools is ujanifested, are acquired. Men 

 are not born witli carpentering, weaving, modelling and architectural 

 instincts, requiring no apprenticeship or culture, like ants, bees and 

 spiders, martins and beavers: though the aptitude in mastering such 

 arts is greater in some than in others. Eut if the tendency in their 

 practice to use the right hand is natural, that is to say innate or conge- 

 nital, then there need be no nice distinctions in affirming it. 



But on any clearly defined physiological deductions of right-handed- 

 ness from the disposition of the organs of motion, or circulation, or 

 any other uniform relation of the internal organs, and the great arteries 

 of the upper limbs, left-handedness becomes mysterious, if not inexpli- 

 cable, unless on the assumption of a corresponding reversal of organic 

 structure; for Dr. Humphry's assertion tbat <'in all persons the left 

 hand may be trained to as great expertness and strength as the right," 

 is contradicted by the experience of left-handed persons in their efforts 

 to apply the same training to the right hand. 



Examples of the assumed organic causes of left-handedness, as already 

 stated, have been repeatedly observed, with no such accompanying 

 results. One case of the transposition of the viscera, in which, never- 

 theless, the person was right-handed, recorded by M. G^ry, is quoted in 

 Cruveillier's Anatomie, i. p. 65. Another is given by M. Gachet, in 

 the Gazette des Hopitaux, Aug. 31, 1861 ; and a third in the Patholo- 

 gical Transactions, vol. xix. p. 447 (^Nature, Apr. 28, 1870). In like 

 manner the theory of Professor Hyrtl fails on appeal to facts. A cor- 

 respondent of Nature (P. S. June 9, 1870) refers to a case of transpo- 

 sition of the origin of the right subclavian artery — disclosed by the 

 occurrence of aneurism, — where the person was ascertained to have been 

 undoubtedly right-handed. So far, therefore, physiological evidence 

 fails to account satisfactorily for right or left-handedness. 



Turning to other sources of information relative to this supposed 

 uniformity of general action, the evidence is of a very varied character; 

 and many curious glimpses of the practice of ancient nations, and of 

 savage races, are still recoverable. An interesting discovery, supposed 

 to prove the simultaneous use, by preference, of the right and the left 

 hand by two fellow-flintworkers of the old prehistoric dawn, is giveu 

 by the Rev. William Greenwell, in a communication to the Ethnological 

 Society of London, on the opening of some ancient flint pits, called 

 "Grime's Graves,*' in Norfolk. The rude flint implements abundantly 

 found in the course of his researches are such as are assigned to the 



