Mencken repeatedly identified mathematics with metaphysics and theology. According to Mencken, mathematics is necessarily infected with metaphysics because of the tendency of many mathematical people to engage in metaphysical speculation. In a review of Alfred North Whitehead's "The Aims of Education", Mencken remarked that, while he agreed with Whitehead's thesis and admired his writing style, "now and then he falls into mathematical jargon and pollutes his discourse with equations," and "here are moments when he seems to be following some of his mathematical colleagues into the gaudy metaphysics which now entertains them." For Mencken, theology is characterized by the fact that it uses correct reasoning from false premises. Mencken also uses the term "theology" more generally, to refer to the use of logic in science or any other field of knowledge. In a review for both Arthur Eddington's "The Nature of the Physical World" and Joseph Needham's "Man a Machine", Mencken ridiculed the use of reasoning to establish any fact in science, because theologians happen to be masters of "logic" and yet are mental defectives: