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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Chapter 13, Statesmen, Chapter 14, American Immortals.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What is the relationship between free will and morality?
(a) Free will has no relationship to morality.
(b) Free will is the cause as well as the effect of morality.
(c) Free will and morality work hand in hand in a positive way.
(d) Free will creates several difficulties for morality.

2. What comparison does Mencken make between man and animal in Chapter 1?
(a) The faculties of animal and man precisely balance when taken as a whole.
(b) Man in every way has faculties that are superior to animals.
(c) Many animals have superior faculties to man.
(d) The only thing man cannot do that animal can is fly.

3. How does Mencken feel about the overall capacity for virtue in the human race?
(a) Very few men are virtuous.
(b) Virtue is a nonsense term, because everything is relative.
(c) Everyone is virtuous, it's just a matter of uncovering it.
(d) Most people are virtuous, but a few people spoil it for everyone.

4. Why is Mencken unable to embrace democratic political theory, as he himself states it in Chapter 9?
(a) He is not poor, and so cannot see democracy's benefits.
(b) He is incapable of being envious of others.
(c) He is morally superior to democrats.
(d) He is simply too cultured and sophisticated.

5. How does Mencken describe Oliver Wendell Holmes?
(a) He was a tool of conservative fuddy-duddies.
(b) He was a brilliant reasoner.
(c) He was a completely inept United States Senator.
(d) He was a tool of liberal elites.

Short Answer Questions

1. What kind of men has history been written by, to date?

2. Who derives several advantages from marriage?

3. What kind of men does a democracy produce?

4. Which is NOT one of Mencken's view of humankind as expressed in Chapter 1?

5. What does the "believer" type of person inevitably do?

(see the answer key)

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