[Illustration: NATURE SERIES] THE RIGHT HAND: LEFT-HANDEDNESS [Illustration] _NATURE SERIES_ THE RIGHT HAND: LEFT-HANDEDNESS BY SIR DANIEL WILSON, LL.D., F.R.S.E. PRESIDENT OF THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO AUTHOR OF ‘THE PREHISTORIC ANNALS OF SCOTLAND’ ‘PREHISTORIC MAN: RESEARCHES INTO THE ORIGIN OF CIVILISATION,’ ETC. London MACMILLAN AND CO. AND NEW YORK 1891 _All rights reserved_ TO HIS GRANDSON OSWALD GEORGE WILSON BELL THIS LITTLE VOLUME IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED BY THE AUTHOR PREFACE The following treatise includes data originally accumulated in a series of papers communicated to the Canadian Institute and the Royal Society of Canada, aiming at determining the cause of Left-handedness by a review of its history in its archæological, philological, and physiological aspects. In revising the materials thus accumulated in illustration of the subject, with a view to their publication in a connected form, the results of later investigation have been embodied here, not only with the aim of tracing Left-handedness to its true source, and thereby proving the folly of persistently striving to suppress an innate faculty of exceptional aptitude, but also to enforce the advantages to be derived by all from a systematic cultivation of dexterity in both hands. BENCOSIE, TORONTO, _24th April 1891_. CONTENTS PAGE CHAPTER I THE HAND 1 CHAPTER II THE EDUCATED HAND 12 CHAPTER III THE WILLING HAND 23 CHAPTER IV PALÆOLITHIC DEXTERITY 31 CHAPTER V THE DISHONOURED HAND 62 CHAPTER VI THE PRIMITIVE ABACUS 77 CHAPTER VII THE COMPASS POINTS 89 CHAPTER VIII HANDWRITING 97 CHAPTER IX