Science Quote by Hippocrates

Hippocrates lands a clean jab at magical thinking without picking a public fight with religion. “Prayer indeed is good” is a diplomatic concession: he grants the ritual its social value, its comfort, its role in community cohesion. Then he pivots with the real message: don’t outsource responsibility to the divine. In a culture where gods were blamed for disease and fate, that second clause is a quiet revolution. It’s not atheism; it’s triage.

The line works because it keeps two audiences in the room. For the devout, prayer remains “good,” not mocked. For the proto-scientific mind, “lend a hand” is the operative command: act, treat, observe, intervene. Hippocrates doesn’t argue metaphysics; he reframes ethics. If you can do something, you must. That moral pressure is the engine of early medicine: prognosis, regimen, surgery, sanitation - all forms of “lending a hand” in the face of suffering that had long been narrated as divine whim.

There’s also a professional subtext: medicine is a craft, not a priesthood. The physician’s legitimacy comes from skill and effort, not from claiming access to the gods. Even today the quote reads like an anti-cop-out mantra for modern life: hope is fine, but it’s not a plan. The gods can be invoked; the work still has to be done by human hands, in real time, with real consequences.