Page:The Anatomy of Tobacco.pdf/103

 cate the esoteric doctrines of Pipe Philosophy; and secondly, lest, if I continue "obscurus fiam," I become obscure, and be reproved by Proctoratus Omniscientius, for that my subject-matter is not "plainly worded and exactly described," which reproof may the gods avert!

It having been granted that there exists a certain energy or virtue, let us consider by what means we may best partake of its essence and approximate to its nature. And the best method appears, in my judgment, to be smoking—h.e., "fumum tabaci ore trahere," as the Schoolmen maintain, which definition, however, may be censured on the ground that it is not adequate to the thing defined. For to say that smoking is "a drawing in [inhaling] of the smoke of tobacco with the mouth," "explicat tantum partem," explains only a part both of the actual process and the abstract idea; since the smoke cannot in the nature of things be continually inhaled without the corresponding process of exhalation; for