Chapter I: 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

PSYCHO-PHYSICAL ACTION 119

CHAPTER X

CONFLICT OF THEORIES 149

CHAPTER XI

HAND AND BRAIN 183