46 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



that law, unless it be asserted that the ■women took equal part in 

 every fray. Again, the proportion of heart- wounds needed would, of 

 itself, put the proposition out of court. The early peoples flung rude 

 missiles, with no very exact aim, or fought with their fists. I^ow, it 

 is a remarkable fact that masters "of the noble art of self-defence " 

 train their pugilistic pupils to advance the left side, the left foot, and 

 the left hand, and that with this hand they are trained to strike ; 

 whilst they parry with the right hand, and rise on the right foot. 

 There is thus a division of labour apportioned between the hands in 

 the instances given ; and the left has, in such cases, no inferior part, 

 even in so-called "right-handed" persons. In stringed instruments, 

 such as the violin, the instrument is placed on the left shoulder (not 

 the right, as in the case of a gun), and the left arm is extended. The 

 action of the right is so ostentatious that the performance would be 

 classed under the head of dextral predominance, whereas the fingering 

 done by the left has no secondary importance. A "right-handed" 

 violinist would find it more difiicult to train his right to fingering 

 than his left to bowing. Such facts indicate an amount of precision, 

 alertness, activity and delicacy in the left, rendering it an agent of 

 great trustworthiness, whose services have been unfairly ignored. 

 Even in that familiar art, where right-handedness is seemingly most 

 manifest — namely, the manipulation of feeding-implements — the knife- ' 

 hand simply cuts the food ; whilst to the fork-hand is entrusted, not 

 merely the task of holding the piece, but the duty of conveying it to 

 the mouth. The Eomans and Greeks, who reclined on couches at 

 meals, must have been accustomed to use the uppermost, and therefore 

 either hand, according to their position at the table. In primitive 

 feeding-methods both hands are generally used, just as is the case 

 commonly with animals which have prehensile fore-extremities. In a 

 primitive art, such as knitting, the fingers of each hand are almost 

 equally employed ; in spinning, the left-hand, as it draws the flax 

 from the "rock," had probably the superior function. In primitive 

 occupations, such as threshing corn and breaking flax, the hands are 

 alternately advanced. There is no art in which the right hand pos- 

 sesses so exclusive a domain at present as that of writing, yet there 

 are sufficient indications that this was not so from the beginning. 

 The cursive character has been shaped by and adapted to the right 

 hand with us ; but in ancient times (as in other countries) the 

 characters were such as that they might have been more readily 

 formed, and the implement more readily used, by either. The Greek 

 and Latia terms for writing mean scoring or furrowing ; and in that 

 particular method which took its name from the turning of the 

 ploughing ox, we are, I think, bound to believe that the right and 

 left hands were used alternately in writing. All these things tend 

 to prove that primeval man was ambidextrous ; that in the lapse 

 of years the operation of the principle of the division of labour ren- 

 dered each hand specially apt for certain purposes. In most cases the 

 more laborious duties, requiring greater strength, fell to the share of 



