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It is every Muslim's duty to read the Koran and try to understand it, which can be a problematic task for those unacquainted with Arabic. The study and appreciation of Arabic literature likewise demands a thorough familiarity with the Koran; the majority of works by Muslim writers abound in allusions to its precepts and quotations from its pages. The sacred text's purity of style and elegance of diction make it the standard of Arabic.This classic guide to one of the world's most widely read books permits everyone, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, to understand the Koran  even those with no prior knowledge of Arabic. Geared toward beginners, it was written to answer the need for an American version of the Koran in contemporary English. Each word is listed under its verbal root, grouping words without roots alphabetically, and numerous explanations of the text appear throughout to help beginners master some inevitable difficulties and to assist more advanced readers of Arabic in solving problems.

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The assassination of Scotland's King Alexander III in 1286 foreshadowed troubles with the English. When Edward I of England failed in his attempt to place his niece upon the Scottish throne, a gap appeared in the royal succession, giving the Scots an opportunity to place one of their own at the head of government. The leader of the movement was William Wallace (c. 1270-1305), a fateful figure in the history of Scotland. This brief study recounts Wallace's legendary life  from his years as a youth and young man spearheading guerrilla warfare against the English, to his designation as "Guardian of Scotland," and his ultimate betrayal and execution. A vivid record of a leader with a powerful hold on the imagination of his people, this important book will be welcomed by students of history and admirers of the Scottish patriot.

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Here is Poincare's famous discussion of creative psychology as it is revealed in the physical sciences. Explaining how such basic concepts as number and magnitude, space and force were developed, the great French mathematician refutes the skeptical position that modern scientific method and its results are wholly factitious. The places of rigorous logic and intuitive leaps are both established by an analysis of contrasting methods of idea-creation in individuals and in modern scientific traditions. The nature of hypothesis and the role of probability are investigated with all of Poincare's usual fertility of insight.Partial contents: On the nature of mathematical reasoning. Magnitude and experiment. Space: non-Euclidean geometrics, space and geometry, experiment and geometry. Force: classical mechanics, relative and absolute motion, energy and thermodynamics. Nature: hypotheses in physics, the theories of modern physics, the calculus of probabilities, optics and electricity, electro-dynamics."Poincare's was the last man to take practically all mathematics, both pure and applied as his province. Few mathematicians have had the breadth of philosophic vision that Poincare's had, and none is his superior in the gift of clear exposition."  Men of Mathematics, Eric Temple Bell, Professor of Mathematics, University of Cambridge

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The Ramayana and Mahabharata Condensed into English Verse

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Like ancient Greece, India claims two great epics: the Ramayana, recounting the adventures of a banished prince who wanders for years in the wilderness of southern India, bears a resemblance to the Odyssey; the Mahabharata, based on the legends surrounding a war in which all the warlike races of Northern India took part, is the country's Iliad. Together, the two represent the epic literature of the ancient Hindus, offering latter-day readers the most realistic image of the civilization and culture of India 3,000 years ago  its political and social life as well as its religion and philosophy.The Ramayana portrays domestic and religious life, with vignettes of tenderness, endurance, and devotion. The Mahabharata depicts the political climate of ancient India, with tales of valor and heroism, ambition, and chivalry. This condensed version of these extremely long tales features selection from cantos that convey the leading incidents of the epic, linking them with short notes. Readers seeking a practical knowledge of these magnificent works within a reasonable compass can do no better than this convenient and poetic translation.

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The long, grim story of the slave trade is a tragic historical narrative. This darkest and most heartless era in African-American history saw millions of Africans kidnapped and sold into bondage in the West Indies, the American colonies, and later, the United States.This history is recalled firsthand in this extraordinary shocking collection of commentaries by ships' doctors and captains as well as written testimonies for a parliamentary committee investigating the slave trade. Accounts vary from sympathetic to indifferent as the narrators relate horrifying events and conditions of extreme cruelty. Detailed descriptions of suppressed mutinies on slave ships and life in "factories"  penned areas that held slaves until they were put aboard ships  are followed by vivid accounts of living conditions on the vessels (for both slaves and sailors), as well as commentary on the commercial structure of the slave trade. More than 50 period engravings and other illustrations depicting slave markets; handcuffs, shackles, and other restraints; and the stowing of slaves aboard ship accompany the staggering record.A basic sourcebook for students of African-American history, this volume is also essential reading for anyone concerned with the genealogy of the social ills and inequities of modern life.

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Drawing on a wealth of archeological evidence, author Jon Manchip White presents a remarkably accurate picture of Egyptian life throughout dynastic times  from the end of the third millennium to the Greek occupation in 330 BC. Because social conditions changed little during these 3,000 years, readers get a clear idea of the roles and tasks assigned to each section of the community  to the Pharaoh and his noblemen; priests and soldiers; scribes and artists; and peasants, who formed the bulk of the population. How these people spent their leisure hours, how they dressed, what they ate and drank, forms of transportation used, how homes were built and furnished, and the activities of women and children are also thoroughly examined. Special emphasis is placed on the importance of religion in daily life, including the social significance of temples, pyramids, and tombs. Accompanying a vivid text are more than 100 photographs and line drawings. "A handy reference tool."  Horn Book.

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Psychologist, psychoanalyst, sociologist, teacher, Otto Rank (18841939) wrote on such subjects as the artist, myth, the hero, sexuality, guilt, dreams, neurosis, and the technique and history of psychoanalysis. His ideas stimulated new lines of investigation not only in psychology but also in social science, religion, history, and anthropology. A pupil, colleague, and early follower of Freud (and later one of his chief dissenters), Rank settled in America in 1933 for a "sabbatical leave" devoted to therapy and teaching. Beyond Psychology was his first book in English, and it contains the results of a lifetime of thought and research about man's essential nature.In Beyond Psychology Rank explores the ultimates of human existence  the fear of death, the desire for immortality, the nature of sexuality, the basis of personality, the nature of social organization, the need for love, the meaning of creativity. He notes the failure of rational ideologies to cope with the instability in our social order, the lack of generally accepted ideals, the hostility, fear, and guilt that seem to characterize our civilization. Rank seeks to understand the basic human problems not by a rejection of irrationality but by an acceptance of it as an inevitable fact of human existence.After a detailed critique of rational psychologies, he examines the myth of The Double in legend and literature in order to investigate the development of the ideal of the Soul, and he traces the reflection of man's fear of final destruction in social organizations, ideologies, concepts of personality, sexual roles, and religion. Among the subjects investigated in this searching analysis are kingship and magic participation, the institution of marriage, power and the state, Messianism, the doctrine of rebirth, the two kinds of love (Agape and Eros), the creation of the sexual self, feminine psychology and masculine ideology, and psychology beyond the self.

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A morality "based on the study of human nature instead of upon disregard for it" is the focus of this influential work by one of America's greatest educators and philosophers. John Dewey maintains that the key to social psychology lies in an understanding of the many varieties of habit; individual mental activity, on the other hand, is guided by the subordinate factors of impulse and intelligence."The mind," Dewey asserts, "can be understood in the concrete only as a system of beliefs, desires, and purposes which are formed in the interaction of biological aptitudes with a social environment." His investigation focuses on three main areas: the place of habit in conduct; the place of impulse in conduct; and the place of intelligence in conduct. Each factor receives an incisive treatment, brimming with ideas, insights, and considered reflections.This classic of its genre presents a rich banquet of food for thought, certain to be appreciated by educators, psychologists, philosophers, and anyone interested in the role of the individual in society.

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Renowned as the father of psychoanalysis, Freud was uniquely qualified to write this fascinating exploration of the nature of wit  including jokes and joking  and its role and function as a manifestation and vehicle of unconscious impulses. First analyzing the techniques and tendencies of wit, the great analyst probes the origins of wit in the "pleasure mechanism." He then discusses the motives of wit, wit as a social process, the relation of wit to dreams and the unconscious, and wit and the various forms of the comic.Until the publication of this important study, the literature on which was insubstantial; those investigations that existed tended to neglect wit in favor of the larger, more general area of the comic. In Freud's hands, however, the study of wit became another avenue of investigation into the psyche. With characteristic insight and intelligence he shows that wit, although it belongs to aesthetics, is subject to the same laws, shares the same mechanism and serves the same tendencies as neuroses, dreams and psychopathological acts.Published a few years after Freud's breakthrough work, The Interpretation of Dreams, the present volume is not only an acutely perceptive psychological study, its lighthearted tone and abundant store of jokes and witticism make it one of the most accessible and enjoyable of Freud's works. It is presented here in an excellent English translation by A. A. Brill, Freud's chosen translator and former Chief of the Clinic of Psychiatry, Columbia University.

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The great French sociologist and philosopher Emile Durkheim is best known for his classic book Suicide (1897), a landmark in social psychology. Among his other major works is this study in the sociology of education, which features 18 lectures by an influential theorist who discusses his ideas on the school as the appropriate setting for moral education. The first element in developing a moral being, he maintains, is instilling a sense of discipline, followed by a willingness to behave in terms of the group's collective interest, and a sense of autonomy. Durkheim also examines discipline and the psychology of the child, discipline of the school and the use of punishment, altruism in the child, the influence of the school environment, and the teaching of science, aesthetics, and history. Perceptive and provocative, this volume abounds in valuable insights for teachers and others involved in education.

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"An illuminating and convincing account of the enormous change in the whole conception of morals and human personality which took place during the centuries covered by Homer, the early lyric poets, the dramatists, and Socrates."  The Times (London) Literary Supplement.European thinking began with the Greeks. Science, literature, ethics, philosophy  all had their roots in the extraordinary civilization that graced the shores of the Mediterranean a few millennia ago. The rise of thinking among the Greeks was nothing less than a revolution; they did not simply map out new areas for thought and discussion, they literally created the idea of man as an intellectual being  an unprecedented concept that decisively influenced the subsequent evolution of European thought.In this immensely erudite book, German classicist Bruno Snell traces the establishment of a rational view of the nature of man as evidenced in the literature of the Greeks  in the creations of epic and lyric poetry, and in the drama. Here are the crucial stages in the intellectual evolution of the Greek world: the Homeric world view, the rise of the individual in the early Greek lyric, myth and reality in Greek tragedy, Greek ethics, the origin of scientific thought, and Arcadia.Drawing extensively on the works of Homer, Pindar, Archilochus, Aristophanes, Sappho, Heraclitus, the Greek tragedians, Parmenides, Callimachus, and a host of other writers and thinkers, Snell shows how the Homeric myths provided a blueprint for the intellectual structure the Greeks erected; how the notion of universality in Greek tragedy broadened into philosophical generalization; how the gradual unfolding of the concepts of intellect and soul provided the foundation for philosophy, science, ethics, and finally, religion.Unquestionably one of the monuments of the Geistegeschichte (History of Ideas) tradition, The Discovery of the Mind throws fresh light on many long-standing problems and has had a wide influence on scholars of the Greek intellectual tradition. Closely reasoned, replete with illuminating insight, the book epitomizes the best in German classical scholarship  a brilliant exploration of the archetypes of Western thought; a penetrating explanation of how we came to think the way we do.

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Egyptian Hieroglyphic Reading Book for Beginners

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20 Egyptian texts  dating from c. 2400 BC to 250 BC  on historical, religious, funereal, other topics printed in hieroglyphics together with transliterations and a complete vocabulary. Also included are full English translations of 8 of the texts. "The Tale of Two Brothers," "The Possessed Princess of Bekhten," many more.

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Introduction to Symbolic Logic and Its Applications

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This book is one of the clearest, most comprehensive and rigorous introductions to modern symbolic logic available in any language. Professor Carnap, a world authority on symbolic logic, develops the subject from elementary concepts and simple exercises through the construction and analysis of a number of relatively complex logical languages. He then considers, in great detail, the application of symbolic logic to the clarification and axiomatization of various theories in mathematics, physics, and biology. Such topics as the nature and use of constants and variables, predicates, sentential connectives, truth-tables, universal and existential sentences, definitions, identity, isomorphism, syntactical and semantical systems and the relations between them, the system of types, varieties of relations, linear order, special operators, structures and cardinal numbers, descriptions, finite and infinite concepts, continuity, thing languages, coordinate languages, axiom systems for set theory, arithmetic, geometry, space-time topology, biological concepts, and many other subjects, are covered in detail. The logic of relations is given a particularly extensive treatment. Hundreds of problems, examples, and exercises are included to give students practice in the techniques of symbolic logic and their usage.

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Twenty Experiments that Changed our View of the World

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These vividly recounted tales of human skill and ingenuity offer fascinating views of the correlation between theories, practical inquiries, ideas, and facts. Re-created strictly on the basis of the original publication in which the results were first announced, the scrupulously accurate retellings of 20 groundbreaking scientific experiments are complemented with rare photos and illustrations.Based on such criteria as fame, historical importance, elegance, and economy of method, the experiments include Aristotle's work on the embryology of the chick, Galileo's discovery of the law of descent, Newton's experiment on the nature of colors, Lavoisier's proof of the oxygen hypothesis, William Beaumont's work on the process of digestion, Faraday's demonstration of the identity of all forms of electricity, J. J. Thompson's discovery of the electron, Michelson and Morely's demonstration of the impossibility of detecting the motion of the earth, and a dozen others.Each experiment is appraised and analyzed in the light of subsequent developments, placing the work within the context of the history of science. In addition to diagrams and photographs of the experimental method and apparatus, brief biographies and portraits of the scientist appear as well.Rom Harre is a Fellow Emeritus of Linacre College, Oxford, and an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University and American University, Washington, D.C.

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What is the strange fascination of the Mystery-Religions for the ancient world and today, some 2,000 years later, for moderns? Why are these colorful ancient cults so little known, all information about them suppressed or distorted by centuries of official religion in Europe? What did these ancient beliefs have that exacted the respect of Socrates, Plato, Virgil, Apuleius, and other great men of the classical age? Was the religion that stamped them out, Christianity, itself originally a Mystery-Religion, with secret teachings that only initiates could comprehend and psychological techniques not generally revealed?This volume, generally considered the most useful single work in English on the subject, attempts to answer such questions, while at the same time offering a sound, solid background in the various forms of religious experience that are grouped together under the term Mystery-Religions. From the Eleusinian mysteries of ancient Greece through the Asiatic cults of Cybele, the Magna Mater, and Attis; the strange rompings of the Dionysian groups; Orphics with their impact on Greek philosophy; the Mysteries emergent from Egypt  Hermes Trismegistos, the Pymander, Isis, and Osiris; on up to the religion that swept the Near East and Europe, carried by the Roman legions, and that almost became central for us today  Mithraism.Each of these religions offered something to its devotees that the older ethnic and state religions could not: a sense of the value of the individual; heightened areas of experience, even to the manipulations of sensory experience; psychological insights that are only now being appreciated. Yet they all died out within a couple of centuries of the Christian era, Gnosticism (apart from a few vestigial groups in the Near East and Europe) subsuming their heritage last.

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Osiris and the Egyptian Resurrection, Vol. 1

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Osiris the king, was slain by his brother Set, dismembered, scattered, then gathered up and reconstituted by his wife Isis and finally placed in the underworld as lord and judge of the dead. He was worshipped in Egypt from archaic, pre-dynastic times right through the 4000-year span of classical Egyptian civilization up until the Christian era, and even today folkloristic elements of his worship survive among the Egyptian fellaheen. In this book E. A. Wallis Budge, one of the world's foremost Egyptologists, focuses on Osiris as the single most important Egyptian deity.This is the most thorough explanation ever offered of Osirism. With rigorous scholarship, going directly to numerous Egyptian texts, making use of the writings of Herodotus, Diodorus, Plutarch and other classical writers, and of more recent ethnographic research in the Sudan and other parts of Africa, Wallis Budge examines every detail of the cult of Osiris. At the same time he establishes a link between Osiris worship and African religions. He systematically investigates such topics as: the meaning of the name "Osiris" (in Egyptian, Asar); the iconography associated with him;  the heaven of Osiris as conceived in the VIth dynasty; Osiris's relationship to cannibalism, human sacrifice and dancing; Osiris as ancestral spirit, judge of the dead, moon-god and bull-god; the general African belief in god; ideas of sin and purity in Osiris worship; the shrines, miracle play and mysteries of Osiris; "The Book of Making the Spirit of Osiris" and other liturgical texts; funeral and burial practices of the Egyptians and Africans; the idea of the Ka, spirit-body and shadow; magical practices relating to Osiris; and the worship of Osiris and Isis in foreign lands.Throughout there are admirable translations of pyramid texts (often with the original hierogyphics printed directly above) and additional lengthy texts are included in the appendices. There are also a great many reproductions of classical Egyptian art, showing each phase of the Osiris story and other images bearing upon his worship. The great wealth of detail, primary informatioin, and original interpretation in this book will make it indispensable to Egyptologists, students of classical civilization and students of comparative religion. Since Osiris seems to have been the earliest death and resurrection god, whose worship both caused and influenced later dieties, the cult of Osiris is highly important to all concerned with the development of human culture.

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One of Western civilization's jealously guarded myths is that of Greek cultural supremacy. In this controversial study, William Ivins shows that the limitations of the Greek worldview actually hampered the development of the arts and sciences and gives a stimulating history of the new ideas of the Renaissance, especially in painting and geometry, that freed us from ancient misconceptions. Beginning with the Greeks, the author explains for the general reader the differences between ancient and Renaissance painting and sculpture, proving that the curiously static quality of Greek art arose from a misunderstanding of the laws of perspective. He then shows how this misunderstanding was corrected by Alberti, Pelerin, Durer, and other Renaissance artists who provided the first fruitful investigations of perspective. From there to projective geometry was but a step, and the author covers this major advance in our knowledge through the work of Nicholas of Cusa, Kepler, and Desargues. This book is perhaps the only concise history in English of the development of mathematical perspective and projective geometry. But the author's ability to relate styles in art to advances in geometry and his ingenious theory of the modern "visual" worldview and the Greek "tactile" worldview mean that his book will be provocative not only to mathematical historians but also to art historians and to anyone concerned with the history of thought, from philosopher to layman.

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Classic Problems in Geometric Constructions

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Although easy to comprehend and fun to do, many geometric constructions defy completion with just a ruler and a compass. This book takes an intriguing look at the most famous of these "impossible" constructions. In exploring ground rules, history, and angle trisection, the first part considers angle trisection and bird migration, constructed points, analytic geometry, algebraic classification of constructible numbers, fields of real numbers, cubic equations, and marked ruler, quadratix, and hyperbola (among other subjects). The second part treats nonconstructible regular polygons and the algebra associated with them; specifically, irreducibility and factorization, unique factorization of quadratic integers, finite dimensional vector spaces, algebraic fields, and nonconstructible regular polygons. High school and college students as well as amateur mathematicians will appreciate this stimulating and provocative book, and its glimpses into the crucial role geometry plays in a wide range of mathematical applications.

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"The book is without peer in its field."  American ScientistIn this completely revised and enlarged edition of a classic work in the history of technology, a noted scholar explores the importance of technological innovation in the cultural and economic history of the West.Following an introductory discussion of the place of technology in economic history, the author offers a penetrating historical analysis of social change. Within this context he develops a theory of invention based on Gestalt psychology and a concept of social evolution as continuous development from antiquity to the present. Emphasis is placed on the role of economic forces in the development of technology, with scientific concepts also playing an important role in bringing about change.The latter part of the book focuses on the production and control of power in general, and in particular on a number of important operative mechanisms. Thus we read thought-provoking accounts of the technology of textile manufacture from primitive times, of water wheels and windmills, water clocks, and mechanical clocks, and the work of Leonardo da Vinci. The development of printing is carefully studied, not only for its intrinsic interest, but because of its importance for the history of science. Other topics include the production and application of power (15001830), machine tools and quantity production, the production and distribution of power since 1832, and the role of Asia Minor as a source of techniques which dominated the Middle Ages and the modern period as well.Thoroughly researched and cogently reasoned, A History of Mechanical Inventions belongs in the library of anyone interested in the history of science and invention, as well as the relationship of technology to economic and social history."Throughout the book there is constant proof of the author's wide learning and varied intellectual interests."  The New York Times

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This concise treatment of differential equations is intended to serve as a text for a standard one-semester or two-term undergraduate course in differential equations following the calculus. Emphasis is placed on mathematical explanations  ranging from routine calculations to moderately sophisticated theorems  in order to impart more than a rote understanding of techniques.Beginning with a survey of first order equations, the text goes on to consider linear equations  including discussions of complex-valued solutions, linear differential operators, inverse operators, and variation of parameters method. Subsequent chapters then examine the Laplace transform and Picard's existence theorem and conclude with an exploration of various interpretations of systems of equations.Numerous clearly stated theorems and proofs, examples, and problems followed by solutions make this a first-rate introduction to differential equations.