Page:The Anatomy of Tobacco.pdf/77

 root the stem of a tree cannot exist, whereas it is conceivable that a root should exist without a stem. So with the bowl and stem of a pipe, they name the bowl the inevitable part and the stem the evitable. They also lay stress on the shape of the bowl, which is circular. Now a circle is the most perfect geometrical conception, and therefore the bowl is the most perfect and ideal part of the pipe, the stem being that part invented by man to bring the whole down to his lower and grosser level. Lastly, they affirm that in the bowl there always resides essence, and sometimes existence also; that in the bowl and stem conjoined there is both essence and existence; and in the stem alone neither essence nor existence.

Sixthly cometh the Orthopoetic Philosophers, so called for that they, rejecting the dogma of the Cœlosphaerics that the essence resides in the bowl, maintain that it is in the stem, and that the first pipe was a tube, in one end of which tobacco was placed, and the