[9] In the tribe of Benjamin “there were seven hundred chosen men left-handed; every one could sling stones at an hair breadth, and not miss.” Judges xx. 16. When David was at Ziklag there came to him a company of men who “were armed with bows and could use both the right hand and the left in hurling stones and shooting arrows out of a bow.” 1 Chronicles xii. 2. Nevertheless, though I think the superiority of the right hand is acquired and is a result of its more frequent use, the tendency to use it, in preference to the left, is so universal that it would seem to be natural. I am driven, therefore, to the rather nice distinction, that, though the superiority is acquired, the tendency to acquire the superiority is natural. It may be argued that the tendency must be based upon something physical, and that, therefore, a tendency to superiority implies an actual superiority. This may be so; but I do not think that we are quite in a position to assert that it is so. We perceive that there is a tendency to the preferential use of the right hand; but we do not know upon what that tendency depends, and have, therefore no right to assert that the cause of it lies in the construction of the limb or of the parts which supply the limb with blood and nervous influence, or, indeed, upon any strictly physical cause whatever. It may be a tendency like that of certain animals to make their holes and nests in particular places and in particular ways, to watch for their prey at particular spots, to migrate in certain directions at particular periods, and to group themselves in a particular order during their travels. Such tendencies, or “Instincts” as they are often called, may possibly be the result of a peculiar conformation of the several animals; but it is, at present, by no means certain that they are so. I have said that man is the only animal in whom a preference in the use of the limb or limbs of one side is shown. This is a consequence of the fact that he is the only animal who has occasion to use the limbs of the two sides separately, or who is in the habit of doing so. Even in the rudest state of society this habit is engendered in him from a very early period, as in carrying a stick, throwing a spear, and in a variety of ways. The habit increases as he becomes more civilized, owing to the greater number of offices which the hands are called upon to perform; and the necessity for using the hands separately would, of itself, lead each individual to the employment of one more frequently than the other; but that that one should so universally be the right hand, seems to be accounted for only by reference to some natural tendency. The imitative propensity in man and the convenience of uniformity of modes of action are scarcely sufficient to account for it.