Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1891-12-24
THE RIGHT HAND.
No Reason Why it should be so hluch
More Important Than the Left

No Reason Why it should be SO R,uch
More Important Than the Left.
There must be few persons Of inquiring
disposition who have not at some time
speculated upon the subject of Sir Daniel
Wilson 8 treatise on the origin of right
handed-ness and the causes that have es-
tabIished its predominance. Most people
are content to account for their right
handedness by the influence Of education,
custom or heredity. Or, they will say it
is by nature or instinct that they use the
right hand in preference to the left. The
number of the left-handed, according to
the best authorities, is but per cent Of
the worlds population. There are no
grounds for supposing that in historic
times at least the percentage of the left
handed exceeded this figure. Nor 90 Sir
Daniel Wilson's resources in prehistoric
art and archaeology tend to snow That the
preferential use of the right hand was not
general among mankind. The use of the
left hand appears to have been always ex-
ceptional. The right hand ruled; the left
was subservient. We may venture to sug-
gest that we owe the historical record of
such examples of LETT -handedness as Sir
Daniel Wilson cites-e. g. the 700 left
handed Benjamite singers quite as much
TO the wonder excited among the right.
handed, as to any exceptional degree OF
skill, estimated by the rormal standard.
But the ancient and unvarying prevalence
OF the rule of the right, while 1t suppl s
the inquirer with the keenest Indictment,
does not tend to simplify the obscurity of
its origin. Then. too, the curious per-
sistence of left handedness, in spite of the
ever-increasing forces of custom and edu
cation, is problem that naturally comes
within the scope of inquiry. Why should
the one hand be preferred before the other?
Why has the right hand been thus honor
ed? Why that particular hand was
chosen" Carlyle obs serves, sis a question
not to be settled, not worth asking, except as
kiud of riddle Happily such is not Sir
Daniel Wilson's conclusion, or the world
had been deprived of an ingenious and
stimulative book. That there is a right
side In man does not admit of serious
dispute, although Sir Thomas Browne was
''not yet assured which was the right
side, or whether there be any such dis
function in nature" The distinction of
right and left dates from remOtest anti
guilty. Not to know the left hand from
the right is the privilege of infancy. But
1t is still an open question whether the
distinction is natural. There can be no
doubt. however, as to the preference of
the right hand. eff it can be shown"
remarked Sir Daniel Wilson, ''that all
nations, civilized and savage, appear to
have used the same hand, 1t is in'vain to
Look for the orig in Of this as an acquired
habit. Only by referring it to some
anatomical cause can its general Ereva-
lence among all races and in every age,
be satisfactorily accounted for" And it
is to this conclusion that Sir Daniel Will
sons inquiry decidedly points. From the
very birth Of arts and crafts man has been
right handed. The evidence of ancient
sculptures and paintings is overwhelming.
Passing beyond such comparatively mod
ern examples as the sculptures Of Assyria
and Egypt to the art Of Palaolithlc man,
when the primitive artist was free to do
what was right in his own eyes, the gen
eral preference OF the right hand is fully
established. Mr.. Cushing and other
practical investigators into the art of flint
arrowhead making agree that the cave
men were, as rule, right-handed. The
study of language, again, reveals the un-