The oldest speculative literature of the Hindus is the Upanishads, composed between 600 B.C. to 300 B.C. It is a collection of works on the nature of man and the universe.

The Bhagavad Gita is part of the great Hindu epic the Mahabharata and has been called the New Testament of Hinduism. This discussion on the nature and meaning of life between the god Krishna, who appears as a charioteer, and Arjuna, a warrior about to go into battle, has had substantial impact on Western thought.

The writer of Ecclesiastes, a book of the Old Testament, portrays his search for the meaning of life, his sense that all is vanity, and his own conclusions in his old age.

Goethe's Faust, an 1808 play based on the legend of a German necromancer, Georg Faust, focuses on an old scholar who yearns to...