Page:The Anatomy of Tobacco.pdf/182

 Jacobulus de Corvis, who holds that a pipe is neither capable of receiving æthereal atoms or ideas, much less of storing them up and imparting them. And his explanation by instance is this:—Supposing that on a bitter and frosty day in midwinter I walk through a wild country abounding in hills, the tops of which are covered with snow. And let me also meet with certain of my acquaintance, and talk with them on some particular matter to which we alone are privy. Grant me likewise to fall into a ditch as I journey along, and be not wroth if I be covered with slush even to my doublet. And further when I reach my journey's end let it be not forbidden me to devour muffins (placentæ calefactæ) even till I can eat no more. Now all these events have occupied a certain space of time, during some part of which (say from my meeting with my friends till the falling into the ditch) I have smoked a particular pipe and none other. And a twelvemonth after, this pipe in the meantime not having been used by me, suppose that in the heart of a city, on a