678 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



more than we (the French), and yet we have to admit that these 

 Germans are not as dull as they should be by the theory, that they 

 do not cut a bad figure in the scientific world, and that they hold 

 a preponderant position in Europe. A more specious argument 

 than this is one which the detractors of tobacco draw from the 

 enfeeblement of memory which many observers pretend to have 

 remarked. This would be a serious matter if the charge was 

 sustained ; but it does not appear to me proved. Instances have 

 been related in good faith, it is true, of persons who are supposed 

 to have lost their memories through the use of tobacco ; but my 

 impression is, that the loss can be more properly attributed to 

 advancing age. 



I have no thought of writing an apology for tobacco, or of ask- 

 ing for the erection of a statue of Jean Nicot. Smoking is a bad 

 habit for everybody, especially for women and children. But be- 

 cause tobacco is a grand culprit is a reason why it should not be 

 painted blacker than it is. If we exaggerate its faults and attrib- 

 ute imaginary ones to it, we run the risk of wholly missing our 

 aim. In fact, children whom we are trying to preserve from it, 

 when they see smokers around them able-bodied and sparkling with 

 wit, are disposed to think we are deceiving them when we hold up 

 this bugbear before them, and will come to not believing the real 

 evils of the bad habit against which we are trying to fortify them. 



Last to be considered is the philosophical side of the question : 

 What is the motive that impels so many persons to contract an 

 inconvenient, expensive, and unhealthy habit ? The problem is in- 

 soluble to persons who do not smoke. " I can never comprehend," 

 lately said a professor of hygiene, "the enjoyment one can feel in 

 converting his mouth into a chimney-flue." Dupuytren called the 

 habit of smoking the ignoble pleasure of poisoning one's self and 

 others. This is not surprising ; but it is more so that smokers 

 themselves can not account for the fact. The general opinion is, 

 that we begin to smoke to imitate others, and continue it by habit, 

 as a distraction, or means of dispelling ennui. " The boy of four- 

 teen or fifteen years, beginning to smoke," says M. Dumas, " does 

 not seek a cerebral excitement in the new habit any more than one 

 who is beginning to drink. He simply imitates the bearded per- 

 sons whom he sees with the pipe or cigar in their mouths. It is 

 to him one of the signs of the virility to which he aspires. It is 

 the easiest way for him to make himself believe that he is already 

 a man, and to make the public believe it." This is true, but few 

 smokers can find any traces of this feeling in their recollections ; 

 but while the desire of affirming one's virility and doing like oth- 

 ers may explain the first essays in the face of the pains that attend 

 them, it does not account for the irresistible attraction of the habit 

 once formed and the readiness with which it establishes itself. 



