[Johnnyvee]

(10-02-2018 02:34 PM)debeguiled Wrote:  

Do you have a Mencken quote or reference where he says this?

"The human mind, at its present stage of development, cannot function without the aid of fictions, but neither can it function without the aid of facts—save, perhaps, when it is housed in the skull of a university professor of philosophy. Of the two, the facts are enormously the more important. In certain metaphysical fields, e.g. those of mathematics, law, theology, osteopathy and ethics—the fiction will probably hold out for many years, but elsewhere the fact slowly ousts it, and that ousting is what is called intellectual progress. Very few fictions remain in use in anatomy, or in plumbing and gas-fitting; they have even begun to disappear from economics."
http://www.unz.com/print/AmMercury-1924oct-00253

He also famously said that; "a judge is a law student who marks his own examination papers."