/lit/ - Literature

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Socrates belonged, in his origins, to the lowest folk: Socrates was
rabble. We know, we can still see for ourselves, how ugly he was. But
ugliness, which in itself is an objection, was among the Greeks virtually
a refutation. Was Socrates Greek in the first place? Ugliness is often
enough the expression of interbreeding, of a development thwarted by
interbreeding. In other cases it appears as a development in decline.
Forensic anthropologists tell us that the typical criminal is ugly: mon-
strum in fronte, monstrum in animo [monster in the face, monster in the
soul]. But the criminal is a décadent. Was Socrates a typical criminal?—
At any rate this wouldn’t contradict that well-known judgment of a
physiognomist which sounded so offensive to Socrates’ friends. A visi-
tor who knew about faces, when he passed through Athens, said to
Socrates’ face that he was a monstrum—that he contained all bad vices
and cravings within him. And Socrates simply answered: “You know me, sir!”