CHAPTER IXPSYCHO-PHYSICAL ACTION
The venerable philosopher of Chelsea, musing, with sorrowful experiences to stimulate inquisitiveness, after wondering if any people are to be found barbarous enough not to have this distinction of hands, sums up with the evasion: “Why that particular hand was chosen is a question not to be settled; not worth asking except as a kind of riddle.” It seems, however, to be regarded by intelligent inquirers as a riddle that ought to be, and that can be solved, though they have wandered into very diverse courses in search of a solution.
It has been affirmed, for example, that while the right hand is more sensitive to touch, and, as it were, the special seat of the sense of feeling,—as with the right-handed it may well be from constantemployment in all operations involving such a test,—the left hand is stated to be the more sensitive to any change of temperature.
Mr. George Henry Lewes, in hisPhysiology of Common Life, says: “If the two hands be dipped in two basins of water at the same temperature, the left hand will feel the greater sensation of warmth; nay, it will do this even where the thermometers show that the water in the left basin is really somewhat colder than in the right basin;” and he adds: “I suspect that with ‘left-handed’ persons the reverse would be found.” On the assumption that the former is a well-established law, the latter seems a legitimate inference; but, as will be seen from what follows, there is good reason for doubting that the statement rests on an adequate amount of evidence.
To determine the prevalence of this relative sensitiveness to heat of the right and left hand, the test ought to be applied to uncultured and savage, as well as to civilised man. The elements which tend to complicate the inquiry are very various. The left-handed man is nearly always ambidextrous, though with an instinctive preference for the left hand in any operation requiring either special dexterity or unusual force. Hence his right hand,though less in use than that of the right-handed man, is in no such condition of habitual inertia as the other’s left hand. Again, a large number give the preference to the right hand from a mere compliance with the practice of the majority; but with no special innate impulse to the use of one hand rather than the other. But besides those, there is a considerable minority in whom certain indications suffice to show that the bias, though no strong and overruling impulse, is in favour of the left hand. I have, accordingly, had a series of tentative observations made for me in the Physical Laboratory of the University of Toronto, under the superintendence of Mr. W. J. Loudon, Demonstrator of Physics. The undergraduates willingly submitted themselves to the requisite tests; and the series of experiments were carried out by Mr. Loudon with the utmost care. No idea was allowed to transpire calculated to suggest anticipated results. A highly characteristic Canadian test of any latent tendency to right or left-handedness was employed. In the use of the axe, so familiar to nearly every Canadian, alike in summer camping-out and in the preparation of winter fuel, the instinctive preference for one or other hand is shown in always keeping thesurer hand nearest the axe-blade. This test was the one appealed to in classifying those who submitted to the following experiments. The trial was made with water very nearly 30° centigrade. The results arrived at are shown here, the persons experimented on being divided into three classes: (1) Right-handed, or those who habitually use the right hand, and who in handling an axe place the right hand above the left, nearest the axe-head. (2) Ordinarily using the right hand, but placing the left hand above the right in the use of the axe. These appear to be generally ambidextrous. (3) Those who are generally said to be left-handed, but employ the pen in the right hand, and also use that hand in many other operations. This class includes very varying degrees of bias; and though loosely characterised as left-handed, from some greater or less tendency to use that hand, the majority of them were found to place the right hand above the left in the use of the axe. One hundred and sixty-four in all were subjected to the test, with the following results: Of ninety right-handed persons, thirty-five found the right hand the more sensitive, thirty-three the left hand, and twenty-two failed to discern an appreciable difference. Of fifty-sixpersons of the second class, right-handed but using the left as the guiding hand with the axe, seventeen found the right hand the more sensitive, and fifteen the left, while twenty-four felt no difference. Of eighteen of the third class, six found the right hand the more sensitive, seven the left hand, and five could detect no difference. Another case was that of a lady, decidedly left-handed, who writes, sews, and apparently does nearly everything with her left hand. She tried at three temperatures, viz. 5°, 30°, and 48° centigrade. In the first case she pronounced the left hand to be undoubtedly colder, in the second she observed no difference, and in the third, the left hand was undoubtedly warmer. Another lady, also habitually using her needle in the left hand, and otherwise instinctively reverting to that hand in all operations requiring delicate or skilful manipulation, repeated the same experiment more than once at my request; but could not detect any difference in the sensitiveness of either hand. The results thus stated were all arrived at with great care. It is manifest that they fail to confirm the statement set forth in thePhysiology of Common Life, or to point to any uniformity in the relative sensitiveness of the right and lefthands. In so far as either hand may prove to be more sensitive to heat than the other, it is probably due to the constant exertion of the one hand rendering it less sensitive to changes of temperature. Yet even this is doubtful. Two carpenters chanced to be at work in the College building while the above experiments were in progress. They were both right-handed workmen; yet, contrary to expectation, on being subjected to the test, they both pronounced the right hand to be more sensitive to heat. The statement of Mr. Lewes is so definite that the subject may be deserving of more extended experiment under other conditions. Any widely manifested difference in the sensitiveness of one of the hands, apart from its habitual use in all ordinary manipulation, and especially among uncultured races, would assuredly seem to indicate some congenital distinction leading to the preferential use of the right hand. But whatever may be the source of this preference, the difference between the two hands is not so great as to defy the influence of education; as is seen in the case of those who, even late in life, through any injury or loss of the right hand, have been compelled to resort to the less dexterous one.
Of the occurrence of individual examples of left-handedness the proofs are ample, seemingly from earliest glimpses of life to the present time; and it would even appear that, in so far as the small yet definite amount of evidence of the relative percentage of the left-handed enables us to judge, it differs little now from what it did at the dawn of definite history.
Professor Hyrtl of Vienna affirms its prevalence among the civilised races of Europe in the ratio of only two per cent; and the number of the old Benjamite left-handed slingers, as distinguished from other members of the band of twenty-six thousand warriors, did not greatly exceed this. In the ruder conditions of society, where combined action is rare, and social habits are less binding, a larger number of exceptions to the prevailing usage may be looked for; as the tendency of a high civilisation must be to diminish its manifestation. But education is powerless to eradicate it where it is strongly manifested in early life. My attention has been long familiarly directed to it from being myself naturally left-handed; and the experience of considerably more than half a century enables me to controvert the common belief, on which Dr. Humphry founds the deduction that the superiority of the right handis not congenital, but acquired, viz. that “the left hand may be trained to as great expertness and strength as the right.” On the contrary, my experience accords with that of others in whom inveterate left-handedness exists, in showing the education of a lifetime contending with only partial success to overcome an instinctive natural preference. The result has been, as in all similar cases, to make me ambidextrous, yet not strictly speaking ambidexterous.
The importance of this in reference to the question of the source of right-handedness is obvious. Mr. James Shaw, by whom the subject has been brought under the notice of the British Association and the Anthropological Institute, remarks in a communication to the latter: “Left-handedness is very mysterious. It seems to set itself quite against physiological deductions, and the whole tendency of art and fashion.” Dr. John Evans, when commenting on this, and on another paper on “Left-handedness” by Dr. Muirhead, expressed his belief that “the habit of using the left hand in preference to the right, though possibly to some extent connected with the greater supply of blood to one side than the other, is more often the result of the manner inwhich the individual has been carried in infancy.” This reason has been frequently suggested; but if there were any force in it, the results to be looked for would rather be an alternation of hands from generation to generation. The nurse naturally carries the child on the left arm, with its right side toward her breast. All objects presented to it are thus offered to the free left hand; and it is accordingly no uncommon remark that all children are at first left-handed. If their training while in the nurse’s arms could determine the habit, such is its undoubted tendency; but if so, the left-handed nurses of the next generation would reverse the process.
While, however, right-handedness is no mere acquired habit, but traceable to specific organic structure, the opinion has been already expressed that it is only in a limited number of cases that it is strongly manifested.
The conclusion I am led to, as the result of long observation, is that the preferential use of the right hand is natural and instinctive with some persons; that with a smaller number an equally strong impulse is felt prompting to the use of the left hand; but that with the great majority right-handednessis largely the result of education. If children are watched in the nursery, it will be found that the left hand is offered little less freely than the right. The nurse or mother is constantly transferring the spoon from the left to the right hand, correcting the defective courtesy of the proffered left hand, and in all ways superinducing right-handedness as a habit. But wherever the organic structure is well developed the instinctive preference manifests itself at a very early stage, and in the case either of decided right-handedness or left-handedness, it matures into a determinate law of action, which education may modify but cannot eradicate.
My colleague, Professor James Mark Baldwin, has followed up my own researches by instituting a systematic series of experiments on his infant daughter, extending over nearly the whole of her first year, with a view to ascertaining definitely the time at which the child begins to manifest any marked preference for either hand. As a specialist in the department of psycho-physics, he carried his inductive research beyond the range embraced in the present treatise; dealing with the question of feelings of efferent nervous discharge or innervation, the motor force of memories of effortless movement,and other conceptions of the psychologist which lie outside of the simpler issue under consideration here. Yet they naturally follow from it; for so soon as volition comes into conscious play, and the hand obeys the mind, and becomes an organ of the will, the psychical element is felt to dominate over the physical; including that very force of will which aims at eradicating the exceptional left-handedness, and enforcing an undeviating submission to the law of the majority.
It is unquestionably of first interest to the psychologist to inquire not only why the child, at the early stage in which a choice of hands is manifested, should prefer the right hand for all strong movements; but also, whether previous experiences in the use of both hands leave behind a sense that the nervous discharge which actuated the right hand was stronger than that which actuated the left. But the point aimed at here is to ascertain the originating physical initiative of determinate action, antecedent to all memory; the precursor of any such action stimulated by memory of an efferent current of discharge of nervous force. For that end the following results, derived from a careful series of observations on thevoluntary actions of a healthy child throughout its first year, are of practical significance and value.
“(1) No trace of preference for either hand was found so long as there were no violent muscular exertions made (based on 2187 systematic experiments in cases of free movement of hands near the body:i.e.right hand 585 cases, left hand 568 cases: a difference of 17 cases; both hands 1034 cases; the difference of 17 cases being too slight to have meaning).
“(2) Under the same conditions, the tendency to use both hands together was about double the tendency to use either (seen from the number of cases of the use of both hands in the statistics given above), the period covered being from the child’s sixth to her tenth month inclusive.
“(3) A distinct preference for the right hand in violent efforts in reaching became noticeable in the seventh and eighth months. Experiments during the eighth month on this cue gave, in 80 cases, right hand 74 cases, left hand 5 cases, both hands 1 case. In many cases the left hand followed slowly upon the lead of the right. Under the stimulus of bright colours, from 86 cases, 84 were right-hand cases, and 2 left-hand. Right-handednesshad accordingly developed under pressure of muscular effort.
“(4) Up to this time the child had not learned to stand or to creep; hence the development of one hand more than the other is not due to differences in weight between the two longitudinal halves of the body. As she had not learned to speak, or to utter articulate sounds with much distinctness, we may say also that right or left-handedness may develop while the motor speech centre is not yet functioning.”[9]
[9]Science, vol. xvi. pp. 247, 248.
[9]Science, vol. xvi. pp. 247, 248.
But memory of prior experiences, habit confirmed by persistent usage, and the influence of example and education, all come into play at an early stage, and lend confirmation to the natural bias. The potency of such combined influences must largely affect the results in many cases where the difference in force between the two cerebral hemispheres is slight; and the stimulus to preferential action is consequently weak, as in many cases it undoubtedly is, and therefore not calculated to present any insurmountable resistance to counteracting or opposing influences. Under the term education, as a factor developing or counteracting the weak tendencytowards either bias, must be included many habits superinduced not only by the example of the majority, but by their constructive appliances. So soon as the child is old enough to be affected by such influences, the fastening of its clothes, the handling of knife and spoon, and of other objects in daily use, help to confirm the habit, until the art of penmanship is mastered, and with this crowning accomplishment—except in cases of strongly marked bias in an opposite direction,—the left hand is relegated to its subordinate place as a supplementary organ, to be called into use when the privileged member finds occasion for its aid.
But on the other hand, an exaggerated estimate is formed of the difficulties experienced by a left-handed person in many of the ordinary actions of life. It is noted by Mr. James Shaw that the buttons of our dress, and the hooks and eyes of all female attire, are expressly adapted to the right hand. Again, Sir Charles Bell remarks: “We think we may conclude that, everything being adapted, in the conveniences of life, to the right hand, as, for example, the direction of the worm of the screw, or of the cutting end of the auger, is not arbitrary, but is related to a natural endowmentof the body. He who is left-handed is most sensible to the advantages of this adaptation, from the opening of the parlour door, to the opening of a penknife.” This idea, though widely entertained, is to a large extent founded on misapprehension. It is undoubtedly true that the habitual use of the right hand has controlled the form of many implements, and influenced the arrangements of dress, as well as the social customs of society. The musket is fitted for an habitually right-handed people. So, in like manner, the adze, the plane, the gimlet, the screw, and other mechanical tools, must be adapted to one or the other hand. Scissors, snuffers, shears, and other implements specially requiring the action of the thumb and fingers, are all made for the right hand. So also is it with the scythe of the reaper. 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 many arrangements of the fastenings of the dress are adapted to this habitual preference 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 what is due to habit is ascribed to nature. A Canadianfriend, 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 forty years, left-handed batters were common in every field; but the immigration of English cricketers has since led, for the most part, to 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. But, giving full weight to all that has been stated here as to right-handed implements, what are the legitimate conclusions which it teaches? No doubt an habitually left-handed people would have reversed all this. But if, with adze, plane, gimlet, and screw, scythe, reaping-hook, scissors and snuffers, rifle, bayonet, and all else—even to the handle of the parlour door, and the hooks and buttons of his dress,—daily enforcing on the left-handed man a preference for the right hand, he nevertheless persistently adheres to the left hand, the cause of this must lie deeper than a mere habit induced in the nursery.
It is a misapprehension, however, to suppose that the left-handed man labours under any conscious disadvantage from the impediments thus created by the usage of the majority. With rare exceptions, habit so entirely accustoms him to the requisite action, that he would be no less put out by the sudden reversal of the door-handle, knife-blade, or screw, or the transposition of the buttons on his dress, than the right-handed man. Habit is constantly mistaken for nature. The laws of the road, for example, so universally recognised in England, have become to all as it were a second nature; and, as the old rhyme says—
If you go to the left, you are sure to go right;If you go to the right, you go wrong.
If you go to the left, you are sure to go right;If you go to the right, you go wrong.
If you go to the left, you are sure to go right;If you go to the right, you go wrong.
If you go to the left, you are sure to go right;
If you go to the right, you go wrong.
But throughout Canada and the United States the reverse is the law; and the new immigrant, adhering to the usage of the mother country, is sorely perplexed by the persistent wrong-headedness, as it seems, of every one but himself.
Yet the predominant practice does impress itself on some few implements in a way sufficiently marked to remind the left-handed operator that he is transgressing normal usage. The candle, “our peculiar and household planet!” as Charles Lambdesignates it, has wellnigh become a thing of the past; but in the old days of candle-light the snuffers were among the most unmanageable of domestic implements to a left-handed man. They are so peculiarly adapted to the right hand that the impediment can only be overcome by the dexterous shift of inserting the left thumb and finger below instead of above. As to the right-handed adaptation of scissors, it is admitted by others, but I am unconscious of any difficulty that their alteration would remove. To Carlyle, as already noted, with his early experiences of country life, the idea of right and left-handed mowers attempting to co-operate presented “the simplest form of an impossibility, which but for the distinction of a ‘right hand,’ would have pervaded all human things.” But, although the mower’s scythe must be used in a direction in which the left hand is placed at some disadvantage—and a left-handed race of mowers would undoubtedly reverse the scythe—yet even in this the chief impediment is to co-operation. The difficulty to himself is surmountable. It is his fellow-workers who are troubled by his operations. Like the handling of the oar, or still more the paddle of a canoe, or the use of the musket orrifle,—so obviously designed for a right-handed marksman,—the difficulty is soon overcome. It is not uncommon to find a left-handed soldier placed on the left of his company when firing; and an opportunity—hereafter referred to,—has happily presented itself for determining the cerebral characteristics which accompany this strongly-marked type of left-handedness. As himself incorrigibly left-handed, the author’s own experience in drilling as a volunteer was that, after a little practice, he had no difficulty in firing from the right shoulder; but he never could acquire an equal facility with his companions in unfixing the bayonet and returning it to its sheath.
But as certain weapons and implements, like the rifle and the scythe, are specially adapted for the prevailing right hand, and some ancient implements have been recovered in confirmation of the antiquity of the bias; so the inveterate left-handed manipulator at times reinstates himself on an equality with rival workmen who have thus placed him at a disadvantage. Probably the most ancient example of an implement expressly adapted for the right hand is the handle of a bronze sickle, found in 1873 at the lake-dwelling of Möringen, on theLake of Brienne, Switzerland. Bronze sickles have long been familiar to the archæologist, among the relics of the prehistoric era known as the Bronze Age; and their forms are included among the illustrations of Dr. Ferdinand Keller’sLake Dwellings. But the one now referred to is the first example that has been recovered showing the complete hafted implement. The handle is of yew, and is ingeniously carved so as to lie obliquely to the blade, and allow of its use close to the ground. It is a right-handed implement, carefully fashioned so as to adapt it to the grasp of a very small hand; and is more incapable of use by a left-handed shearer than a mower’s scythe. Its peculiar form is shown in an illustration which accompanies Dr. Keller’s account; and in noting that the handle is designed for a right-handed person, he adds: “Even in the Stone Age, it has already been noticed that the implements in use at that time were fitted for the right hand only.” But if so, the same adaptability was available for the left-handed workman, wherever no necessity for co-operation required him to conform to the usage of the majority. Instances of left-handed carpenters who have provided themselves with benches adapted to their special usehave come under my notice. I am also told of a scythe fitted to the requirements of a left-handed mower, who must have been content to work alone; and reference has already been made to sets of golfing drivers and clubs for the convenience of left-handed golfers.
Handle of Bronze Sickle, Möringen, Switzerland.To facepage 138.
Handle of Bronze Sickle, Möringen, Switzerland.To facepage 138.
Handle of Bronze Sickle, Möringen, Switzerland.
To facepage 138.
The truly left-handed, equally with the larger percentage of those who may be designated truly right-handed, are exceptionally dexterous; and to the former the idea that the instinctive impulse which influences their preference is a mere acquired habit, traceable mainly to some such bias as the mode of carrying in the nurse’s arms in infancy, is utterly untenable. The value of personal experience in determining some of the special points involved in this inquiry is obvious, and will excuse a reference to my own observations, as confirmed by a comparison with those of others equally affected, such as Professor Edward S. Morse, Dr. E. A. Reeve, a former pupil of my own, and my friend, Dr. John Rae, the Arctic explorer. The last remarked in a letter to me, confirming the idea of hereditary transmission: “Your case as to left-handedness seems very like my own. My mother was left-handed, and very neat-handed also. My father had a crooked littlefinger on the left hand. So haveI.” Referring to personal experience, I may note as common to myself with other thoroughly left-handed persons, that, with an instinctive preference for the left hand, which equally resisted remonstrance, proffered rewards, and coercion, I nevertheless learned to use the pen in the right hand, apparently with no greater effort than other boys who pass through the preliminary stages of the art of penmanship. In this way the right hand was thoroughly educated, but the preferential instinct remained. The slate-pencil, the chalk, and penknife were still invariably used in the left hand, in spite of much opposition on the part of teachers; and in later years, when a taste for drawing has been cultivated with some degree of success, the pencil and brush are nearly always used in the left hand. At a comparatively early age the awkwardness of using the spoon and knife at table in the left hand was perceived and overcome. Yet even now, when much fatigued, or on occasion of unusual difficulty in carving a joint, the knife is instinctively transferred to the left hand. Alike in every case where unusual force is required, as in driving a large nail, wielding a heavy tool, or striking a blow with the fist, as well as inany operation demanding special delicacy, the left hand is employed. Thus, for example, though the pen is invariably used in the right hand in penmanship, the crow-quill and etching needle are no less uniformly employed in the left hand. Hence, accordingly, on proceeding to apply the test of the hand to the demotic writing of the Egyptians, by copying rapidly the Turin enchorial papyrus already referred to, first with the right hand and then with the left, while some of the characters were more accurately rendered as to slope, thickening of lines, and curve, with the one hand, and some with the other, I found it difficult to decide on the whole which hand executed the transcription with greater ease. In proof of the general facility thus acquired, I may add that I find no difficulty in drawing at the same time with a pencil in each hand, profiles of men or animals facing each other. The attempt to draw different objects, as a dog’s head with the one hand and a human profile with the other, is unsuccessful, owing to the complex mental operation involved; and in this case the co-operation is apt to be between the mind and the more facile hand. In the simultaneous drawing of reverse profiles there is what, to an ordinary observer, would appear to bethorough ambidexterity. Nevertheless, while there is in such cases of ambidexterity, characteristic of most left-handed persons, little less command of the right hand than in those exclusively right-handed, it is wholly acquired; nor, in my own experience, has the habit, fostered by the practice of upwards of seventy years, overcome the preferential use of the other hand.
When attending the meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science held at Buffalo in 1867, my attention was attracted by the facility with which Professor Edward S. Morse used his left hand when illustrating his communications by crayon drawings on the blackboard. His ability in thus appealing to the eye is well known. The BostonEvening Transcript, in commenting on a course of lectures delivered there, thus proceeds: “We must not omit to mention the wonderful skill displayed by Professor Morse in his blackboard drawings of illustrations, using either hand with facility, but working chiefly with the left hand. The rapidity, simplicity, and remarkable finish of these drawings elicited the heartiest applause of his audience.” Referring to the narrative of my own experience as a naturally left-handed person subjectedto the usual right-hand training with pen, pencil, knife, etc., Professor Morse remarks in a letter to me: “I was particularly struck by the description of your experiences in the matter, for they so closely accord with my own: my teachers having in vain endeavoured to break off the use of the left hand, which only resulted in teaching me to use my right hand also. At a short distance, I can toss or throw with the right hand quite as accurately as I can with my left. But when it comes to flinging a stone or other object a long distance, I always use the left hand as coming the most natural. There are two things which I cannot possibly do with my right hand, and that is to drive a nail, or to carve, cut, or whittle. For several years I followed the occupation of mechanical draughtsman, and I may say that there was absolutely no preference in the use of either hand; and in marking labels, or lettering a plan, one hand was just as correct as the other.” I may add here that in my own case, though habitually using the pen in my right hand, yet when correcting a proof, or engaged in other disconnected writing, especially if using a pencil, I am apt to resort to the left hand without being conscious of the change. In drawing I rarely use the righthand; and for any specially delicate piece of work, should find it inadequate to the task.
The same facility is illustrated in the varying caligraphy of a letter of Professor Morse, in which he furnished me with the best practical illustration of the ambidextrous skill so frequently acquired by the left-handed. He thus writes: “You will observe that the first page is written with the right hand, the upper third of this page with the left hand, the usual way [but with reversed slope], the middle third of the page with the left hand, reversed [i.e.from right to left], and now I am again writing with the right hand. As I have habitually used the right hand in writing, I write more rapidly than with the other.” In the case of Professor Morse, I may add, the indications of hereditary transmission of left-handedness nearly correspond with my own. His maternal uncle, and also a cousin, are left-handed. In my case, the same habit appeared in a paternal uncle and a niece; and my grandson manifested at an early age a decided preference for the left hand. Even in the absence of such habitual use of both hands as Professor Morse practises, the command of the left hand in the case of a left-handed person is such that veryslight effort is necessary to enable him to use the pen freely with it. An apt illustration of this has been communicated to me by the manager of one of the Canadian banks. He had occasion to complain of the letters of one of his local agents as at times troublesome to decipher, and instructed him in certain cases to dictate to a junior clerk who wrote a clear, legible hand. The letters subsequently sent to the manager, though transmitted to him by the same agent, presented in signature, as in all else, a totally different caligraphy. The change of signature led to inquiry; when it turned out that his correspondent was left-handed, and by merely shifting the pen to the more dexterous hand, he was able, with a very little practice, to substitute for the old cramped penmanship an upright, rounded, neat, and very legible handwriting.
In reference to the question of hereditary transmission, the evidence, as in the case of Dr. Rae, is undoubted. Dr. R. A. Reeve, in whom also the original left-handedness has given place to a nearly equal facility with both hands, informs me that his father was left-handed. Again Dr. Pye-Smith quotes from theLancetof October 1870 the case of Mr. R. A. Lithgow, who writes to say that he himself,his father, and his grandfather have all been left-handed. This accords with the statement of M. Ribot in hisHeredity. “There are,” he says, “families in which the special use of the left hand is hereditary. Girou mentions a family in which the father, the children, and most of the grand-children were left-handed. One of the latter betrayed its left-handedness from earliest infancy, nor could it be broken off the habit, though the left hand was bound and swathed.” Such persistent left-handedness is not, indeed, rare. In an instance communicated to me, both of the parents of a gentleman in Shropshire were left-handed. His mother, accordingly, watched his early manifestations of the same tendency, and employed every available means to counteract it. His left hand was bound up or tied behind him; and this was persevered in until it was feared that the left arm had been permanently injured. Yet all proved vain. The boy resumed the use of the left hand as soon as the restraint was removed; and though learning like others to use his right hand with facility in the use of the pen, and in other cases in which custom enforces compliance with the practice of the majority, he remained inveterately left-handed. Again a Canadian friend, whose sister-in-law is left-handed,thus writes to me: “I never heard of any of the rest of the family who were so; but one of her brothers had much more than the usual facility in using both hands, and in paddling, chopping, etc., used to shift about the implement from one hand to the other in a way which I envied. As to my sister-in-law, she had great advantages from her left-handedness. She was a very good performer on the piano, and her bass was magnificent. If there was a part to be taken only with one hand, she used to take the left as often as the right. But it was at needlework that I watched her with the greatest interest. If she was cutting out, she used to shift the scissors from one hand to the other; and would have employed the left hand more, were it not that all scissors, as she complained, are made right-handed, and she wished, if possible, to procure a left-handed pair. So also with the needle, she used the right hand generally; but in many delicate little operations her habit was to shift it to the left hand.”
In those and similar cases, the fact is illustrated that the left-handed person is necessarily ambidextrous. He has the exceptional “dexterity” resulting from the special organic aptitude of the left hand, which is only paralleled in those cases of trueright-handedness where a corresponding organic aptitude is innate. Education, enforced by the usage of the majority, begets for him the training of the other and less facile hand; while by an unwise neglect the majority of mankind are content to leave the left hand as an untrained and merely supplementary organ. From the days of the seven hundred chosen men of the tribe of Benjamin, the left-handed have been noted for their skill; and this has been repeatedly manifested by artists. Foremost among such stands Leonardo da Vinci, skilled as musician, painter, and mathematician, and accomplished in all the manly sports of his age. Hans Holbein, Mozzo of Antwerp, Amico Aspertino, and Ludovico Cangiago, were all left-handed, though the two latter are described as working equally well with both hands. In all the fine arts the mastery of both hands is advantageous; and accordingly the left-handed artist, with his congenital skill and his cultivated dexterity, has the advantage of his right-handed rival, instead of, as is frequently assumed, starting at a disadvantage.