THE 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 as left 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’s _Anabasis_, 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
one of 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 his
_Narrative of an Exploration in Tropical Africa_, when describing the
efforts of the Damaras at computation, states that the mental effort
fails them beyond _three_. “When they wish to express _four_, 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 after _five_, 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 his
_New 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. But _five_, _nine_,
and _ten_ are 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 number _five_ would have some connection with
the word signifying ‘a hand,’ and the number _ten_ with 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 Sanskrit _pan’-cha_ as
formed of the copulative conjunction added to the neuter form of _pa_,
one, and so signifying “and one.” Benary explains it as an abbreviation
of _pân’-i-cha_, “and the hand”--the conjunction being equally
recognisable in _pan’-cha_, πέν-τε, and _quinque_. 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 counting four the whole hand was opened and held up. To
reckon by the hand was, accordingly, to make a rough computation, as
in the _Wasps_ of 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 and _dextra_, 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 for _the left_ refer to the root of _five_, those for _the right_
to the root of _ten_.” 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 and _digitus_, are directly traceable to
δέκα and _decem_. The connection between ἀριστερά and _sinistra_ is
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 with _digitus_ a
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, in the 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 mortem
Distulit, atque suos jam dextra computat annos,
Quique novum toties mustum bibit.
A curious allusion, by Tacitus, in the first book of his _History_,
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 he narrates:
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’s _Catalogue 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.
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 root _daça_, Greek
δέκα, through the Gothic _taihun_, the _hunda_, as in _tva hunda_, two
hundred. He next points out the resemblance between the Gothic _hunda_
and _handus_, _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
to numerals above twenty, as _hund-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 himself as 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, recorded in 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.