Head and Hand in Ancient Greece: Four Studies in the Social Relations of Thought

Four essays in the sociology of knowledge constitute this book.
The first discusses the character of the great early period of Greek science and shows that, while it was not yet experimental, neither was it purely speculative. It was, in fact, closely related to practice.
The second traces the effect on the art and science of medicine of social changes affecting the attitude to manual work and the manual worker.
Stoicism as a living and developing movement in a changing environment forms the subject of the third essay.
In the words of Gibbon, “Ancient Rome had many religions. For the philosophers, these were equally false; for the people they were equally true; and for the government they were equally useful.”
The fourth and last of Farrington’s essays shows how the mild religion and bold science of Epicurus rapidly spread throughout Italy and threatened to rob superstition of its police function.