214 RIGHTHANDEDNESS. 



reckoned on the right hand. The poet, Juvenal, refers to this in his 

 tenth Satire, where, in dwelling on the attributes of age, he speaks of 

 the centenarian, " who counts his years on his right hand." 



" Felix nimirum, qui tot per srecula mortem 

 Distulit, atque suos jam dextra computat annos, 

 Quique novum toties mustum Mbit." 



A curious allusion, by Tacitus, in the first book of his History, serves 

 to show that the German barbarians beyond the Alps no less clearly 

 recognized the significance of the right hand, as that which was pre- 

 ferred, and accepted as the more honourable member. The Lingones, 

 a Belgian tribe, had sent presents to the Legions, as he narrates, and 

 in accordance with ancient usage, gave as the symbolical emblem of 

 friendship, two right hands clasped together. " Miserat civitas Lia- 

 gonum vetere institute dona legionibus, dextras, hospiti insigne." The 

 dextree are represented on a silver quinarius of Julius Caesar, described 

 in Ackerman's " Catalogue of rare and unedited Roman Coins," vol. i. 

 p. i06. 



Other evidence of a different kind confirms the recognition and pre- 

 ferential use of the right hand among our Germanic ancestors from the 

 remotest period. Dr. Richard Lepsius, in following out an ingenious 

 analysis of the primitive names for the numerals, and the sources of 

 their origin, traces from the common Sanskrit root daca^ Greek dixa, 

 through the Gothic taihnn, the Jiunda, as in tva hiinda : two hundred. 

 He next points out the resemblance between the Gothic hunda and 

 handus, i.e., the hand, showing that this is no accidental agreement, 

 but that the words are etymologically one and the same. The A. S. 

 Jiund, a hundred, originally meant only ten, and was prefixed to nume- 

 rals above twenty, as Jiund eahtatig, eighty, &c. 



The whole argument, thus glanced at, proceeds on the assumption 

 that right-handedness is natural, and of universal recognition. When 

 we turn from purely philological to direct historical evidence, the proofs 

 ■ of its recognition are sufSciently distinct to leave no doubt on the mind. 

 Oldest and clearest of all are the references in early Hebrew history. 

 We learn from the Book of Judges (c. xx. v. 16), that in the tribe of 

 Benjamin, out of twenty-six thousand men that drew the sword, 

 there were '' seven hundred chosen men, left-handed : every one could 

 sling stones at a hair's breadth, aad not miss." The skill thus ascribed 

 to the left-handed Benjamites will properly come under review on a 



