This ancient Roman dialogue plays out as a religious debate between the Christian lawyer Octavius, and his close friend, a skeptical pagan named Caecilius. Caecilius is relatively agnostic, expressing skepticism towards both aspects of traditional Roman paganism, as well as towards his friend's newfangled Christian religion. Octavius attempts to give the reasons he has for his own beliefs and answer Caecilius' critiques. The author- Marcus Minucius Felix - plays the role of referee and observer. This is one of the earliest Latin texts to talk about Christianity, and describe how the new religion fit in the wider social context of the Roman world...

The Enchiridion of Epictetus is a short collection of Stoic precepts compiled by Arrian, a student of Epictetus. Epictetus was a Greek philosopher and a champion of Stoicism, a philosophy dedicated to tranquility of the mind and soul via practical, actionable advice. Popular in the ancient and medieval world, it has even found favor in the contemporary military; fighter pilot James Stockdale attributed his survival of over seven years as a prisoner of war to the way of thinking contained in this short work.

The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali are in themselves exceedingly brief, less than ten pages of large type in the original. Yet they contain the essence of practical wisdom, set forth in admirable order and detail. The theme, if the present interpreter be right, is the great regeneration, the birth of the spiritual from the psychical man: the same theme which Paul so wisely and eloquently set forth in writing to his disciples in Corinth, the theme of all mystics in all lands.We think of ourselves as living a purely physical life, in these material bodies of ours...

This little Blue Book No. 39, by Will Durant, deals with Aristotle , a Macedonian pupil of Plato, who became the teacher of Prince Alexander. While his pupil went off to conquer the world, Aristotle returned to Athens and founded his school, the Lyceum. There he amassed the first great collection of plants and animals and laid the foundations of biology, logic, literary theory, ethics, and political science. Departing from abstract Platonic universals, Aristotle described such natural processes as the developing embryo of the chick...

Book I Grouping of animals and the parts of the human body. Book II Different parts of red-blooded animals. Book III Internal organs. Book IV Animals without blood . Books V & VI Animal reproduction. Book VII Human reproduction. Book VIII Habits . Book IX Social behavior. Book X Dealing with barrenness in women was excluded from the translation of D'Arcy Thompson for being spurious so the translation of the Clergyman Richard Cresswell is used instead. Sir D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson was a biologist, mathematician and classicist who also wrote On Growth and Form which discusses the mathematical patterns and structures formed in plants and animals.

Philosophical discourses of Epictetus as recorded by his affectionate student, Arrian. One main precept expounded is that we do not fear events but rather our thoughts about those events.

Titus Lucretius Carus , the author of "De Rerum Natura" or "On the Nature of Things," was a Roman poet and philosopher. The work, a didactic poem expounding the teachings of Epicurus, often rises to sublime and lyrical heights. Lucretius enjoins us to shun superstitious fears and religious rituals. The universe is governed by the laws of matter and energy. The world, like ourselves, is mortal. But the philosophic materialism of Lucretius does not impair his awestruck delight in the spectacle of the heavens, in the play of dust motes in a beam of light, in the sight of molten metals, or of the fierce breed of lions, or of horses surging from a starting gate...

Movement of Animals begins with a discussion of the physics of motion and asks whether God, the Unmoved Mover, exists outside of our Universe. Progression of Animals asks why animals have the parts they do and to what end these parts are possessed. - Summary by Geoffrey Edwards

Generation of Animals ; Latin: De Generatione Animalium) Book 1: Sexual Parts, Semen & Sexual Generation Book 2: Sexes, Embryo Development & Sterility Book 3: Birds, Fish, Cephalopods, Insects, Bees & Testacea Book 4: Causes of Sex, Heredity & Teratology Book 5: Distinction between Necessity and the Final Cause Charles Darwin wrote: "Linnaeus and Cuvier have been my two gods, though in very different ways, but they were mere schoolboys to old Aristotle." - Summary by Geoffrey Edwards

Four lectures about East Indian spirituality delivered at the twenty-fifth anniversary meeting of the Theosophical Society at Benares, 1900. - Summary by Czandra

The sixth volume in the Golden Bough. Frazer continues into the second part of the compilation of analogies dealing with the recurring theme of the dying god. the worship of the dead, and dead kings. Extensive evidence is presented from the history of Egypt and what had been learned from archaeology in North Africa and the Mediterranean. The Egyptian calendar and festivals, the identify and personality of Osiris, and the relationship of the mother goddess, are discussed in length. - Summary by Leon Harvey

Meteorology by Aristotle Translated by Erwin Wentworth Webster before he fell in action in 1917. Book I: The Celestial Sphere, Stars & Precipitation Book II: Seas, Winds & Earthquakes Book III: Halos, Rainbows & Mock Suns Book IV: The Elements & Secondary Qualities On the Universe is attributed to Aristotle but may have been written by Posidonius the Stoic or someone well acquainted with his work. Two candidates for the Alexander addressed in the text are Alexander the Great and Tiberius Claudius Alexander, nephew of Philo Judaeus and Procurator of Judaea, and in A...