CHAPTER VITHE PRIMITIVE ABACUS
Under varying aspects of the question of right-handedness the inquiries into its origin have naturally reverted to the lateral position of the heart as a probable source of diversity of action in the two hands; and this is the more suggestive owing to the fact that exceptional cases of its reversed position are occasionally found. When Carlyle reflected on right-handedness as “probably the oldest human institution that exists,” he suggested as the source of choice of the hand that it “probably arose in fighting: most important,” as he says, “to protect your heart and its adjacencies, and to carry the shield on the hand.” This idea, in so far as it implies the habitual use of the shield in the left hand, or on the left arm, and consequently of the shield-hand asleft and passive, is old as Homer; and the evidence of its practice is abundantly confirmed by the drawings on the most archaic Greek vases. The right side was ἐπὶ δόρυ, the spear side, while the left was ἐπ’ ἀσπίδα, the shield side. The familiar application of the terms in this sense is seen in Xenophon’sAnabasis, IV. iii. 26:Καὶ παρήγγειλε τοῖς λοχαγοῖς κατ’ ἐνωμοτίας ποιήσασθαι ἕκαστον τὸν ἑαυτοῦ λόχον, παρ’ ἀσπίδας παραγαγόντας τὴν ἐνωμοτίαν ἐπὶ φάλαγγος,“He ordered to draw up his century in squads of twenty-five, and post them in line to the left.” And again,Anabasis, IV. iii. 29:Τοῖς δὲ παρ’ ἑαυτῷ παρήγγειλεν ... ἀναστρέψαντας ἐπὶ δόρυ, κ.τ.λ.,“He ordered his own division, turning to the right,” etc. Egyptian paintings are older than the earliest Greek vases, but they are less reliable; for in the symmetrical arrangements of hieroglyphic paintings the groups of figures are habitually reversed, right and left, looking toward a central line or point. Yet there also evidence may be found confirming the same idea.
But we may once more turn aside from the physical to the intellectual aspect of available evidence, and find confirmation of a like kind in oneof the earliest definite manifestations of cultured reason. Few tests of relative stages of civilisation are more trustworthy than that of the definite conception of high numbers. The prevalence of a decimal system of numerals among widely severed nations, alike in ancient and modern times, has been universally ascribed to the simple process of counting with the aid of the fingers. Mr. Francis Galton, in hisNarrative of an Exploration in Tropical Africa, when describing the efforts of the Damaras at computation, states that the mental effort fails them beyondthree. “When they wish to expressfour, they take to their fingers, which are to them as formidable instruments of calculation as a sliding rule is to an English schoolboy. They puzzle very much afterfive, because no spare hand remains to grasp and secure the fingers that are required for units.” Turning to the line of evidence which this primitive method of computation suggests, some striking analogies reveal a recognition of ideas common to the savage and to the cultivated Greek and Roman. Donaldson, in hisNew Cratylus, in seeking to trace the first ten numerals to their primitive roots in Sanskrit, Zend, Greek, and Latin, derives seven of them from the three primitive prenominal elements.Butfive,nine, andtenare referred by him directly to the same infantile source of decimal notation, suggested by the ten fingers, as has been recognised in similar operation among the Hawaiians, and the Maoris of New Zealand. “One would fancy, indeed, without any particular investigation of the subject, that the numberfivewould have some connection with the word signifying ‘a hand,’ and the numbertenwith a word denoting the ‘right hand’; for in counting with our fingers we begin with the little finger of the left hand.” Hence the familiar idea, as expressed in its simplest form, where Hesiod (Op.740) calls the hand πέντοζον, the five-branch; and hence also πεμπάζω, primarily to count on five fingers.
Bopp, adopting the same idea, considers the Sanskritpan’-chaas formed of the copulative conjunction added to the neuter form ofpa, one, and so signifying “and one.” Benary explains it as an abbreviation ofpân’-i-cha, “and the hand”—the conjunction being equally recognisable inpan’-cha, πέν-τε, andquinque. This, they assume, expressed the idea that the enumerator then began to count with the other hand; but Donaldson ingeniously suggests the simpler meaning, that after countingfour the whole hand was opened and held up. To reckon by the hand was, accordingly, to make a rough computation, as in theWaspsof Aristophanes, where Bdelycleon bids his father, the dicast, “first of all calculate roughly, not by pebbles, but ἀπὸ χειρός, with the hand.”
The relation of δεξιά to δέκ-α anddextra, δέκ-α,decem, δεκ-σιός,decster, illustrates the same idea. Grimm, indeed, says, “In counting with the fingers, one naturally begins with the left hand, and so goes on to the right. This may explain why, in different languages, the words forthe leftrefer to the root offive, those forthe rightto the root often.” Hence also the derivation of finger, through the Gothic and Old High German, from the stem for “five” and “left”; while the Greek and Latin, δάκτυλος anddigitus, are directly traceable to δέκα anddecem. The connection between ἀριστερά andsinistrais also traced with little difficulty: the sibilant of the latter being ascribed to an initial digamma, assumed in the archaic form of the parent vocabulary. Nor is the relationship of δεξιά withdigitusa far-fetched one. As the antique custom was to hand the wine from right to left, so it may be presumed that the ancients commenced counting with the left hand, inthe use of that primitive abacus, finishing with the dexter or right hand at the tenth digit, and so completing the decimal numeration.
The inferior relation of the left to the right hand was also indicated in the use of the former for lower, and the latter for higher numbers beyond ten. In reckoning with their fingers, both Greeks and Romans counted on the left hand as far as a hundred, then on the right hand to two hundred, and so on alternately: the even numbers being always 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 secula mortemDistulit, atque suos jam dextra computat annos,Quique novum toties mustum bibit.
Felix nimirum, qui tot per secula mortemDistulit, atque suos jam dextra computat annos,Quique novum toties mustum bibit.
Felix nimirum, qui tot per secula mortemDistulit, atque suos jam dextra computat annos,Quique novum toties mustum bibit.
Felix nimirum, qui tot per secula mortem
Distulit, atque suos jam dextra computat annos,
Quique novum toties mustum bibit.
A curious allusion, by Tacitus, in the first book of hisHistory, serves to show that the German barbarians beyond the Alps no less clearly recognised the significance of the right hand as that which was preferred, and accepted as the more honourable member. The Lingones, a Belgian tribe, had sent presents to the legions, as henarrates: and in accordance with ancient usage gave as the symbolical emblem of friendship two right hands clasped together. “Miserat civitas Lingonum vetere instituto dona legionibus, dextras, hospitii insigne.” The dextræ are represented on a silver quinarius of Julius Cæsar, thus described in Ackerman’sCatalogue of rare and unedited Roman Coins, “PAX. S. C. Female head.Rev.L. AEMILIVS. BVCA. IIII. VIR. Two hands joined.”[6]
[6]Ackerman, i. 106.
[6]Ackerman, i. 106.
Other evidence of a different kind confirms the recognition and preferential use of the right hand among our Teutonic 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 rootdaça, Greek δέκα, through the Gothictaihun, thehunda, as intva hunda, two hundred. He next points out the resemblance between the Gothichundaandhandus,i.e.“the hand,” showing that this is no accidental agreement, but that the words are etymologically one and the same. The A.S.hund, a hundred, originally meant only “ten,” and was prefixed tonumerals above twenty, ashund-eahtatig, eighty,hund-teontig, a hundred, etc.
Thus far philological evidence clearly points to a very wide prevalence of the recognition of right-handedness; and when we turn from this to the oldest sources of direct historical evidence, the references abundantly confirm the same conclusions. The earliest ascertained historical record of left-handed dexterity is familiar to all. The references to this in the Book of Judges show that the skill of the left-handed among the tribe of Benjamin was specially noted, while at the same time the very form of the record marks the attribute as exceptional; and all the more so as occurring in the tribe whose patronymic—ben yamin, the son of the right hand,—so specially indicates the idea of honour and dignity constantly associated with the right hand throughout the Hebrew Scriptures. When, as we read in the Book of Judges, the Lord raised up as a deliverer of Israel from the oppression of Eglon, King of Moab, Ehud, the son of Gera, he was a Benjamite, a man left-handed. He accordingly fashioned for himself a two-edged dagger, which he girt under his raiment upon his right thigh; and thus armed he presented himselfas the bearer of a present from the children of Israel to the king, and sought a private interview, saying, “I have a secret errand unto thee, O king.” The special fitness of the left-handed emissary, as best suited for the daring act required of him, is in itself a proof that it was an exceptional attribute. The express mention that he girded his dagger on his right thigh is significant. It was doubtless assumed that when he reached with his left hand towards the weapon concealed under his raiment, the motion would not excite suspicion. A later chapter of the same venerable historical record furnishes the account of a body of seven hundred chosen marksmen, all left-handed, selected from the same tribe for their pre-eminent skill. The incident is noteworthy, and recalls the mode of selection of the three hundred chosen men with whom Gideon overthrew the Midianites. As the host of Israel passed over a stream their leader noted that the greater number, pausing, stooped down on their knees and tarried to drink; but the hardy warriors, eager for the fight, hastily dipped up the water in their hand, and snatching a draught passed on. By these did Gideon, the son of Joash, discomfit the hosts of the Midianites.The number of the left-handed Benjamites does not furnish any evidence that this specialty was more prevalent among them than other tribes. But it is not difficult to conceive of some resolute combatant, endowed with the capacity of a leader, and conscious of his own skill in the use of his weapons in his dexterous left hand, banding together under his leadership a company selected on account of their manifesting the same exceptional dexterity. With this as the indispensable requisite, he was able to muster a body of seven hundred marksmen, all men of his own tribe, every one of whom was left-handed, and could sling stones at a hair’s-breadth and not miss. To the naturally left-handed man such dexterity is in no degree surprising. Among the instinctively left-handed, those with whom the bias is slight readily yield to the influence of example and education, and so pass over to the majority. Only those in whom the propensity is too strong to yield to such influences remain. They are, therefore, exceptionally dexterous with their left hand; and are thus not only distinguished from the equally expert right-handed, but are, still more, an exception to the large majority in whom the bias is so slight,and the dexterity so partial, that their practice is little more than a compliance with the usage of the majority.
It is important to keep in view the fact that the relative numbers furnished by the narrative in the Book of Judges do not suggest that the tribe of Benjamin differed in the above respect from other tribes. Of twenty-six thousand Benjamites that drew the sword, there were the seven hundred left-handed slingers, or barely 2·7 per cent, which does not greatly differ from the proportion noted at the present time. In the song of triumph for the avenging of Israel over the Canaanites, in the same Book of Judges, the deed of vengeance by which Sisera, the captain of the host of Jabin, King of Canaan, perished by the hand of a woman, is thus celebrated: “She put her hand to the nail, and her right hand to the workman’s hammer; and with the hammer she smote Sisera.” Here, as we see, while their deliverer from the oppression of the Moabites is noted as a Benjamite, a left-handed man; Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, is blessed above women, who with her right hand smote the enemy of God and her people. Along with those references may be noted one of a later date, recordedin the first Book of Chronicles. When David was in hiding from Saul at Ziklag there came to him a company of Saul’s brethren of Benjamin, mighty men, armed with bows, who could use both the right hand and the left in hurling stones and shooting arrows out of a bow. These latter, it will be observed, are noted not as left-handed, but ambidextrous; but this is characteristic of all left-handed persons as an inevitable result of education or compliance with the prevailing usage; though even amongst them the unwonted facility with both hands rarely, if ever, entirely supersedes the greater dexterity of the left hand. Possibly the patronymic of the tribe gave significance to such deviations from normal usage; but either for this or some unnoted reason the descendants of Benjamin, the Son of the Right Hand, appear to have obtained notoriety for exceptional aptitude in the use of either hand.