Benjamin Farrington, in Greek Science, presents the theses that the development of basic scientific ideas in Greek civilization occurred in the sixth and fifth centuries B.C., beginning with the Ionians, and that this development was to a significant degree curtailed by the emergence of the more famous but less scientific philosophies of socrates, Plato and Aristotle. In presenting his description of the salient features of the early Greeks, Farrington likens their science to modern science in a number of ways:
it regarded man as a product of natural evolution, it regarded his powers of speech and thought as a product of his life in society, and it regarded his science as part of his technique of the control of his natural environment (11).
Farrington's book is sophisticated and technical enough to satisfy the needs of a professional in the field of science or philosophical science, but it is accessible enough to interest the intelligent lay reader. it is not written for novices in the fields of science and philosophy, who would benefit instead from a more basic and simple text. The lay reader who is both versed in the rudiments of the history of science and philosophy and ambitious and equipped to delve into more serious and complex thought would certainly find Farrington's book a worthwhile challenge.
Farrington's style is far more argumentative than matter of fact, which could make his work inappropriate for an impressionable reader. That is, his views are so strongly presented, with such biases favoring the earlier Greeks and criticizing the later Greeks, that the reader must have a strong mind as well. In Farrington's favor is the fact that he makes his biases and opinions clear from the beginning of the book. It is also in Farrington's favor that he does not present his biases emotionally, but supports them with impressive and well-reasoned evidence. For example, Farrington writes that "though the later greeks came to ...