RIGHTHANDEDNESS. 229 



until the art of penmanship is mastered, and with this crowning accom- 

 plishment — except in cases of strongly marked bias in an opposite 

 direction, — the left hand is relegated to its very subordinate place as a 

 mere supplementary organ, to be called into use where the privileged 

 member finds occasion for its aid. 



Hence I believe the statistics of right and left-handedness will be 

 found to vary considerably in diflferent conditions of society and ranks 

 of life. Few rustic operations more markedly betray the inconvenience 

 of left-handedness than those of the harvest field; yet so far as myowa 

 observation extends, a large field of reapers will rarely be found without 

 one or two left-handed shearers among them. Indeed the greater number 

 of examples of female left-handedness which I can call to remembrance 

 are those I have seen in the harvest field. The importance attached to 

 habits at table, and the enforced uniformity of action by the tutor or 

 governess, tend, in a higher class, to eliminate all but the most invete- 

 rate inclination towards a deviation from the practice of the majority. 

 No governess, I imagine, would tolerate the needle in the left hand, 

 any more than a writing-master would allow the pen to be so used. 

 Hence the whole tendency of education is to eradicate or reduce to the 

 lowest minimum all such sinister proclivities ; whereas in savage and 

 even in rustic life, any strong bias will be slightly interfered with ; and 

 so the left-handed impulse will be free to manifest itself to the utmost. 

 But so soon as combined operations are reduced to any system, the 

 convenience of a uniform preference of the same hand must be felt; 

 and then whatever tendency affects the greater number will give the 

 law to all. 



So far as enquiry reaches, we have no evidence of any left-handed 

 tribe or nation, savage or civilized, unless the vague allusion of Stob^us 

 — already quoted, — to a sure-footed and left-handed race, be considered 

 an exception. Either, therefore, the preferential use of the right hand 

 is natural and congenital in a sufficiently large majority of the whole 

 human race to determine everywhere its predominance, or else the 

 arbitrary usage, developed into a habit and recognized law, has been 

 derived from some primitive common source. The latter is a tempting 

 argument, not without its weight in reference to the unity and common 

 intellectual inheritance of the human race. But, notwithstanding the 

 apparent failure of the evidence advanced in favour of an organic one- 

 sidedness finding expression in the prevalent use of the right hand, my 

 own experience of the unconquerable impulse to "prefer the left hand, 



