Page:The Anatomy of Tobacco.pdf/106

 namely, the best means to be employed in participating in the above-named virtue. To which question it was answered that smoking is the best means, and most adapted to the end in view. And this answer led to a precise definition of smoking (ut supra), from which definition followed the corollary that "a certain portion of each inhalation is retained within the body on which it exerts its nicotinic virtue." Hence the participation of the mind in the nicotinic energy is a mediate one, and dependent on the body. And this is the doctrine of physical participation.

To which the upholders of the doctrine of metaphysical participation object that the pleasure received is incomplete if one smoke in the dark. Whence it followeth that the watching of the smoke, as it escapes from the bowl or mouth, has a large part in the process of participation; some even going so far as to make this contemplation of the smoke the essence of participation, and the physical effect only an inseparable accident thereof.