Abnormal Interests

Wait a minute. I'm having multi-orgasmic "historical déjà vu" here. I'm not saying Mark Twain didn't kick literary ass but weren't his words beaten to the punch millenia ago? Hmmm...

Aristotle, Rhetoric, 1376b-1377a: "Examination by torture is one form of evidence, to which great weight is often attached because it is in a sense compulsory. Here again it is not hard to point out the available grounds for magnifying its value, if it happens to tell in our favour, and arguing that it is the only form of evidence that is infallible; or, on the other hand, for refuting it if it tells against us and for our opponent, when we may say what is true of torture of every kind alike, that people under its compulsion tell lies quite as often as they tell the truth, sometimes persistently refusing to tell the truth, sometimes recklessly making a false charge in order to be let off sooner."

I see that we're doomed to repeat history forever and ever and ever.

Glen, you are of course correct. I wouldn't be surprised if Twain knew how close he was to Aristotle. But then, Twain was talking quite specifically about water boarding and Aristotle was speaking more generally.