"Facts," he said, "all I'm interested in is facts!"  It's the opening line of Charles Dickens's Hard Times, the British author's look at some of the downsides of his country's entry into the Industrial Age.

     Facts are essential, facts are necessary.  What, however, are they?  That is the far greater question.  We balance our thinking between what we believe to be true on the basis of our senses (facts) and that which we believe to be true based on our imaginations (fantasy).  Both are important to meaningful existence.  As we cannot live without concrete and attestable information about our world, so we cannot live apart from being able to go beyond these things.  To rework an old adage, all facts and no imagination makes us very dull beings.

     Which none of us wishes to be.  Only with our imaginations can we test facts, and only with facts can we ground the imagination.
     And only with transcendence can we measure both.