Page:The Anatomy of Tobacco.pdf/53

 be emptied out; that these ashes being matter must be contained by something (and ash-tray is only a name given to a thing for the containing of ashes): therefore ash-trays are necessary. And again arguing à parte ante we may conclude that earth itself is necessary to smoking. For if I smoke I must have tobacco, and that tobacco must have been produced from the earth; therefore earth is necessary. But since no reasonable man would dream of classing it as necessary matter, we hereby perceive the vanity and inutility of such reasoning.

And so the scholastic categories having been put to the test and vindicated, we are free to close the present matter and pass on to the next section with clear pipes, unbefouled with the Acrid Oil of Sophistry and the Uliginous Ashes of Unreason.