"We do not insist principally on the material disasters resulting from tobacco, knowing very well that any reasoning on this subject will not produce conviction. A danger of far greater interest to those concerned in the preservation of the individual, is the enfeeblement of the human mind, the loss of the powers of intelligence and of moral energy; in a word, of the vigor of the intellect, one of the elements of which is memory. We are much deceived if the statistics of actual mental vigor would not prove the lower level of the intellect throughout Europe since the introduction of tobacco. The Spaniards have first experienced the penalty of its abuse, the example of which they have so industriously propagated, and the elements of which originated in their conquests and their ancient energy. The rich Havana enjoys the monopoly of the poison which procures so much gold in return for so many victims; but the Spaniards have paid for it also by the loss of their political importance, of their rich appanage of art and literature, of their chivalry, which made them one of the first peoples of the world. Admitting that other causes operated, tobacco has been one of the most influential. Spain is now a vast tobacco-shop, and its only consolation is, that other nations are fast approaching its level. "Tobacco, as the great flatterer of sensuality, is one of the most energetic promoters of individualism--that is, of a weakening of social ties. Its appearance coincides fatally with reform and the spirit of inquiry. Man inaugurates the introduction of logic in matters inaccessible, at the same time that, as Montaigne says, he gives way to a habit destructive of the faculty of ratiocination--a contradiction which shows us that necessity of defect by which he is tortured."[21] Two inferences may be drawn from the results of our discussion. 1. It does not appear from the considerations presented above, that tobacco is an agent _directly_ responsible in any large degree for the production of insanity, nor does this appear to be the case as indicated by the statistics of asylums for the insane, nor by observation or experience. It rather appears that it is responsible as an agent which, in some measure, from its effects as a poison on the brain, must tend to check the growth and development of the intellectual and moral power in the individual, especially when indulged in during the period of youth and early manhood; and thus it becomes allied with other agencies which, in many cases, would not otherwise become operative in the production of insanity.