502 



COSMIC DUST 



COSSACKS 



cosmetics in use are comparatively harmless, such 

 as perfumed starch and chalk ( see ROUGE ) ; whilst 

 others, such as pearl white ( the subnitrate of bis- 

 muth, see BISMUTH), are more or less poisonous, 

 arid dangerous to use. At all times, the employ- 

 ment of cosmetics is to be discouraged, as the 

 minute particles tend to fill up and clog the pores 

 of the skin, and prevent the free passage of gases 

 and vapours, which is so essential to the preserva- 

 tion of any animal organ in a thorough state of 

 health. 



Cosmic Dust. See DUST. 



Cosmo de' Medici. See MEDICI. 



CosiUOg'ony, a theory of the origin of the 

 universe (Gr. kosmos) and its inhabitants, such as 

 is found in the mythologies of all peoples except 

 those in the very lowest stages of culture. There 

 is the utmost variety in the explanations given, the 

 only idea that is at all widely spread being that in 

 the beginning all things were held in solution by 

 water. Other prevailing conceptions are those of 

 the Phoenician and Egyptian generative world-egg ; 

 of the Hindu tortoise which supports elephants, 

 themselves the actual bearers of the world ; of the 

 Polynesian air-god, Tangaloa, hovering over the 

 waters. A very elaborate cosmogony is given in 

 the Pehlevi Bundehesh, ascribing creation to the 

 free-will of a personal deity, as distinct from primor- 

 dial matter, and this more elevated conception the 

 religion of Zoroaster shares with the Jewish alone. 



In the Sanchoniathon we have presented in a 

 Greek version a fragment of an interesting Phoeni- 

 cian cosmogony, whicli explains the origin of 

 organic matter as due to a series of spontaneous 

 emanations. But the most interesting cosmogonies 

 we possess are the ancient Babylonian, of which 

 one form is preserved in the Greek of Berosus, 

 while another was deciphered by George Smith 

 from the cuneiform inscriptions. These present 

 startling identities with the creation story in the 

 first chapter of Genesis. 



Modern cosmogonists arrange themselves mainly 

 according to their attitude to Theism ( q. v. ). Theists 

 explain the world of matter and order as having 

 come into existence at the omnific fiat. Pantheism 

 (q.v.), again, holds the universe to be the very 

 body anal being of Deity, and as such to have 

 been from all eternity. Most men of science, in 

 modern times, stopping short of an actual cos- 

 mogony or genesis of the world, have pushed their 

 inquiries into the order of development of its pres- 

 ent state. Some assume the necessary existence 

 of matter ; with these there is no proper beginning 

 of things, but an eternal round, under fixed laws 

 of growth and decay. 



In cosmogonical speculations, heat, air, atoms 

 with rotatory motions, numbers have all in turn 

 been recognised as the fountain and causes of 

 things. Of hypotheses as to the formation of our 

 own rotating globe, of our system, and of all 

 similar systems in space, the most notable is that 

 of Laplace, founded on observation of the mutual 

 relations of the planets, their common direction in 

 rotation and revolution, their general conformity 

 to one plane, &c. , taken in connection with such 

 facts as the rings of Saturn and the fundamental 

 unity of the asteroids. Laplace had in some 

 measure been anticipated by Kant. Thus arose 

 the Nebular Theory (see NEBULA), the evidence for 

 which was carefully marshalled by Sir W. Herschel ; 

 and which is still regarded by some physicists as 

 indicated by the general tendencies of the laws of 

 nature. M. Faye has given his theory of the origin 

 of the earth from meteorites, and discussed other 

 cosmogonic theories in Sur I'Origine du Monde 

 (1880). Following up this view of a formation of 

 the planetary globes by natural causes, there have 



been speculations as to the commencement and 

 progress of organic life upon them, and com- 

 munication of it from one planet to another ( as by 

 Sir William Thomson ; and see Professor Tyndall's 

 presidential address to the British Association in 

 1874). Darwin's work has completely altered the 

 face of biological research and theory ( see EVOLU- 

 TION, DARWINIAN THEORY, and SPENCER). For 

 the cosmogonies of the various nations, philoso- 

 phies, and religions, see MATERIALISM, THEOGONY, 

 HEGEL, ADAM, CREATION ; as also the articles on 

 the Scandinavian Mythology, on the Greek Religion, 

 on Spontaneous Generation, and on various aspects 

 of Indian speculation. 



Cosmological Argument. See GOD. 



Cosmos. See COSMOGONY. 



Cosne, a town, with iron manufactures, in the 

 French department of Nievre, and on the right 

 bank of the Loire, 122 miles SSE. of Paris by rail. 

 Pop. 6684. 



Cosquin, EMMANUEL, an eminent French folk- 

 lorist, was born at Vitry-le-Francois in Marne, 

 where his father was a notary, as w'ell as maire for 

 nearly twenty years, 25th June 1841. He made 

 his studies at the college of his native town, taking 

 at the close of his course the diploma of licentiate 

 in law, and here he has lived ever since. He has 

 contributed many articles on religious questions 

 to the Conservative and Catholic journal, Le Fran- 

 qais (since November 1887 incorporated with Le 

 Moniteur Universel ), as well as numerous articles on 

 more general questions to other newspapers and 

 magazines, and has translated La vraie et la fausse 

 Infallibility des Papes (1873), and Le Concile du 

 Vatican ( 1877), two works by Mgr. Fessler, geheral 

 secretary of the Vatican Council. But his most 

 important work was a series of articles from 1876 

 to 1881 in the pages of ^Romania, which at once 

 arrested the attention of scientific folklorists every- 

 where. These were collected into two volumes, 

 issued in 1886 as Contes populaires de Lorraine, 

 perhaps the most really important contribution 

 made to storiology since the classical collections of 

 J. F. Campbell ( 1860-62 ) and Von Hahn ( 1864 ). The 

 stories were taken from a limited region, and were 

 for the most part poorer in detail than parallel 

 versions found elsewhere, but they possessed in 

 their scientific accuracy a value \vhich belongs 

 unhappily to but few collections of folk-tales avail- 

 able to the student. The theory of the origin and 

 transmission of such stories that M. Cosquin sup- 

 ports in his admirable introduction and in his no 

 less luminous than learned notes, is a development 

 of that put forth by Benfey in the famous introduc- 

 tion to his translation of the Panchatantra (1859), 

 that not only the bases of these stories but their 

 combinations have been carried from India within 

 the historical period. M. Cosquin's position has 

 been vigorously assailed by Mr Lang and others, 

 but has been as vigorously defended by himself. 

 See FOLKLORE. 



Cossacks (Russ. Kasak], a race whose origin 

 is hardly less disputed than that of their name. 

 The latter has been variously derived from words 

 meaning, in radically distinct languages, ' an armed 

 man, a sabre, a rover, a goat, a promontory, a coat, 

 a cassock, and a district in Circassia. ' The Cos- 

 sacks are by some held to be Tartars, by more to be 

 of nearly pure Russian stock ; but the most probable 

 view is that they are a people of very mixed origin. 

 Slavonic settlers seem to have mingled with Tartar 

 and Circassian tribes in the regions to the south of 

 Poland and Muscovy, in the Ukraine and on the 

 lower Don, and to have given to the new race, 

 first heard of as Cossacks in the 10th century, a 

 predominantly Russian character. On the con- 

 quest of Red Russia by Poland, numerous Russian 



