Iconic authors
Themes
Bibliography of the day
Refuted as Proof, Kept as Intelligence, the Long Life of Torture as an Engine of State
The Enlightenment showed that pain proves nothing. But torture never lived only as proof: from Roman treason trials to Tudor plots to memoranda on actionable intelligence, it served the state's hunt for confederates, and there the refutation never quite reached.
Sign or Destiny, the Old Border Between the Hippocratic Face and Physiognomy
Physicians have read approaching death in the face since Hippocrates. Physiognomists read character there. They share the same gaze but make opposite claims: one sees a passing state of the body, the other a destiny stamped on the person.
