50 COSMOS. 



' The enumeration of the most important results of the astro- 

 nomical and physical sciences which in the history of the 

 Cosmos radiate towards one common focus, may perhaps, to a 

 certain degree, justify the designation I have given to my 

 work, and, considered within the circumscribed limits I have 

 proposed to myself, the undertaking may be esteemed less 

 adventurous than the title. The introduction of new terms, 

 especially with reference to the general results of a science 

 which ought to be accessible to all, has always been greatly 

 in opposition to my own practice; and whenever I have 

 enlarged upon the established nomenclature, it has only been 

 in the specialities of descriptive botany and zoology, where 

 the introduction of hitherto unknown objects rendered new 

 names necessary. The denominations of physical descriptions 

 of the universe, or physical cosmography, which I use indis- 

 criminately, have been modelled upon those of physical descrip- 

 tions of the earth, that is to say, physical geography, terms that 

 have long been in common use. Descartes, whose genius was 

 one of the most powerful manifested in any age, has left us a 

 few fragments of a great work, which he intended publishing 

 under the title of Monde, and for which he had prepared him- 

 self by special studies, including even that of human anatomy. 

 The uncommon, but definite expression of the science of the 

 Cosmos recalls to the mind of the inhabitant of the earth that 

 we are treating of a more widely-extended horizon ; of the 

 assemblage of all things with which space is filled, from the 

 remotest nebulae to the climatic distribution of those delicate 

 tissues of vegetable matter, which spread a variegated cover- 

 ing over the surface of our rocks j 



The influence of narrow-minded views peculiar to the 

 earlier ages of civilisation led in all languages to a confu ion. 

 of ideas in the synonymic use of the words earth and world; 

 whilst the common expressions, voyages round the world, map 

 of the world, and new world, afford further illustrations of the 

 same confusion. The more noble and precisely-defined ex- 

 pressions of system of the world, the planetary ivorld, and crea- 

 tion and age of the ivorld, relate either to the totality of the 

 substances by which space is filled, or to the origin of the 

 whole universe. 



graphy in relation to Nature and the ^History of Man, or general Com- 

 parative Geography). 



