TOBACCO AND THE TOBACCO HABIT. 679 



The customs and tastes of populations and the fashions change 

 and give place to others that disappear in their turn, after having 

 inspired the same infatuation in us ; but the habit of smoking goes 

 on increasing, over all obstacles. The earliest adepts of the prac- 

 tice braved anathemas and persecutions, and some of them pun- 

 ishments. The smokers of to-day do not have to make the same 

 struggles, but many of them endure troubles that compromise their 

 health rather than abandon the practice, and among these are men 

 of energy and intelligence, whatever else may be said of them. 



There must, therefore, be in this passion something besides the 

 satisfaction of a mechanical habit. " The particular intoxication 

 caused by tobacco," says M. Dumas, " must have irresistible attrac- 

 tions for an intoxicant of so recent discovery, the initiation into 

 which is so painful, to have overtaken wine, old as the world." 

 The charm of tobacco-intoxication is not easy to explain. It is in 

 the soothing, says M. Fay ; it is an anaesthesia that has become 

 necessary, says M. Richet ; it is a state of torpor which conduces 

 to revelry, say others. Tolstoi maintains that it is nothing of 

 this kind, but the desire to stifle the voice of conscience ; and, 

 confounding tobacco with alcohol and opium, the Russian roman- 

 cist envelops them both in the same anathema. In explanation 

 of his view he has recourse to a theory known in physiology as 

 that of duality, or human dynamism. During his conscious life, 

 Tolstoi says, man has frequent occasion to recognize in himself 

 two distinct beings : one blind and sensitive, the other enlight- 

 ened and thinking. The former eats, drinks, rests, sleeps, repro- 

 duces, and moves, like a machine wound up for a certain time. 

 The other, the thinking and enlightened, united with the sensitive 

 one, does not act by itself, but only controls and appraises the con- 

 duct of the former one, helping it effectively if it approves, and 

 remaining neutral in the contrary case. This spiritual but pow- 

 erless being plays in human psychology the part of the compass 

 of the ship, of which the other being is the helmsman. The last 

 can follow the directions of the magnetic needle, or he can pay no 

 attention to them ; he is even able, when its warnings annoy him, 

 to disarrange his compass. Weak and timorous persons have re- 

 course to the last expedient. They stifle their conscience, and, in 

 order to do so, use alcohol or tobacco. 



Count Tolstoi's theory can not be sustained. It has one par- 

 ticularly weak point in the similarity which the author assumes 

 between the effects of tobacco and of alcohol. Not one of the 

 personages whom the translator of his work consulted protested 

 against this confusion, and still it is false and deceitful. The Rus- 

 sian's paradox may be applied, to a certain extent, to drunkenness. 

 We do sometimes get drunk to forget, to stupefy ourselves, and 

 it is a detestable means. Rogues and criminals all do it; they 



