ANTIQUITY OF SMOKING. 159 



in the East to natives who indulged in the habit, in 

 opposition to the royal edicts against the Frankish 

 novelty ; as well as with the records of the nations 

 themselves.* Some sectarians, of an austere piety, 

 have denounced the use of tobacco and coffee, as 

 unlawful to the true believer, and still hold that faith. 



To deduce therefore the modern custom of tobacco- 

 smoking from the ancient herb -smoking is clearly 

 illogical ; — the one being used in sickness as a remedy, 

 and in occasions of necessit}^ ; the other by persons 

 in perfect health, at all times, and as a pleasurable 

 gratification. No instance can be quoted of the ancient 

 use of any herb in the modern way tobacco is taken — 

 that is, as a luxury, and not as a physical necessity or 

 an intoxicating agent.t How prone some persons are 

 to jump to conclusions — and more particularly if those 

 conclusions are startling, and upset all previously 

 believed historical assertions — must have frequently 

 astonished or amused all investigators. The conclu- 

 sions drawn from the finding of tobacco pipes are per- 

 haps the most remarkable of all ; had one been found 

 on Mount Ararat, it might have been affirmed to have 

 been smoked by Noah ! I 



* See chap. iii. p. 121. 



+ We purposely leave China out of the argument. Tobacco is asserted 

 to have been anciently smoked there ; but their annals do not give it a 

 very remote date, and as we are, from the nature of their policy, restricted 

 from a proper investigation of the truth of much that they assert, we 

 cannot be sure that some of their remote pretensions are not the results of 

 the Eastern love of exaggeration. See also p. 213. 



J This is not too absurd an assumption, and might be fortified by a 

 reference to the authority of Eastern sages. See p. 43. Such an assertion 



