32 COSMOS. 



earth, and '*' probabl)* extends as far as the moon." It wai 

 of " a fiery nature, a brightly-beaming, pure fire-air,=^ of great 

 subtlety and eternal serenity." This definition perfectly co- 

 incides with its etymological derivation from aWetv, to burn, 

 for which Plato and Aristotle, from a predilection for me- 

 chanical views, singularly enough substituted another {del- 

 Oelv), on account of the constancy of the revolving and rota- 

 tory movement. t The idea of the subtlety and tenuity of 

 the upper ether does not appear to have resulted from a 

 knowledge that the air on mountains is purer and less 

 charged with the heavy vapors of the earth, or that the dens- 

 ity of the strata of air decreases with their increased height. 

 In as far as the elements of the ancients refer less to mate- 

 rial differences of bodies, or even to their simple nature (their 

 incapacity of being decomposed), than to mere conditions of 

 matter, the idea of the upper ether (the fiery air of heaven) 

 has originated in the primary and normal contraries of heavy 

 and light, lower and uj}per, earth and fire. These extremes 



* Empedocles, v. 216, calls the ether rrafxipavouv, brightly-beamiug, 

 and therefore selt-lumiiious. 



t Plato, Cratyl., 410 B., where we meet with the expression deLde^fj. 

 Aristot., i>e Casio, 1, 3, p. 270, Bekk., says, in opposition to Anaxagoras: 

 aWepa Trpoauvofiaoav rbv avurarci tokov, utto tov ^eIv ueI tov dldiov 

 ^povov -d^ifievoc ttjv enuvvfilav avru. 'Ava^ayopac di KaraKEXp^jraL tu 

 ov6/j.aTC Tovr(i) ov /coAwj- • bvofiu^et yap alOipa uvtl Tzvpog. We find thia 

 more circumstantially referred to in Anstot., Meteor., 1, 3, p. 339, lines 

 21-34, Bekk.: " The so-called ether has an ancient designation, which 

 Anaxagoras seems to identify with fire ; for, according to him, the up- 

 per region is full of fire, and to be considered as ether ; in which, in- 

 deed, he is correct. For the ancients appear to have regarded the body 

 which is in a constant state of movement, as possessing a divine natjare, 

 and therefore called it ether, a substance with which we have nothing 

 analogous. Those, however, who hold the space surrounding bodies to 

 be fire no less than the bodies themselves, and who look upon that 

 which lies between the earth and the stars as air, would probably re- 

 linquish such childish fancies if they properly investigated the results of 

 the latest researches of mathematicians." (The same etymology of thia 

 word, implying rapid revolution, is referred to by the Aristotelian, or 

 Stoic, author of the woi'k De Mundo, cap. 2, p. 392, Bekk.) Professor 

 Franz has correctly remarked, " That the play of words in the designa 

 tiou of bodies in eternal motion (acJua uel t^eov) and oithe divine (^eIov] 

 alluded to in the Meteorologica, is strikingly characteristic of the Greek 

 typ-s of imagination, and affords additional evidence of the inaptitude of 

 the ancients for etymological inquiry." Pz'ofessor Buschmann calls at- 

 tention to a Sanscrit term, dschlra, ether or the atmosphere, which looks 

 very like the Greek aldrjp, with which it has been compared by Vana 

 Kennedy, in his Researches into the Origin and Affinity of the principal 

 Languages of Asia and Europe, 1828, [>. 279. This word may also bo 

 referred to the root (as, asch), to which the Indians attach the signiS 

 cation of shining or beaming. 



