20 



LIMITATION AND TREATMENT 



planet to the sun and moon — are considered. 

 It is a great and enduring honour to Varenius, 

 that the reahzation of this plan of a General 

 and of a Comparative Geography attracted 

 Newton's attention in a very decided manner ; 

 but owing to the imperfect state of the acces- 

 sory sciences from which Varenius drew, the 

 way in which the idea could be carried out was 

 not in accordance with the grandeur of the con- 

 ception. It was reserved for our own times to 

 see comparative geography, in the widest sense 

 of the expression, even in its reflex on the his- 

 tory of mankind — the influence which the fig- 

 ure of continents has had on the course of the 

 great migrations of the human family, and the 

 progress of civilization, worked out in the most 

 masterly manner(^). 



The enumeration of the various rays which 

 unite as in a focus in the natural sciences con- 

 sidered as a whole, may serve as an apology 

 for the title of the work which I venture to pro- 

 duce in the late evening of my life. This title 

 is perhaps even bolder than the undertaking it- 

 self, considering the limits which I have pre- 

 scribed myself In the special departments, I 

 had hitherto avoided as much as possible the 

 use of new names for the indication of new 

 conceptions. Where I attempted any exten- 

 sion of our nomenclature, it was always con- 

 fined to individual objects in zoology and bota- 

 ny. The term. Physical Cosmography, which 

 I here employ, is imitated from the phrase. 

 Physical Geography, which has long been fa- 

 miliar to all. The great extent of the subject 

 embraced, the purpose of surveying nature at 

 large, from the remote nebulous specks in the 

 heavens, to the climatic distribution of the or- 

 ganic tissues that colour the face of our rocks, 

 make the introduction of a new term necessa- 

 ry. And however completely our old and usual 

 terms earth, and world, blend together, as we 

 see them in the familiar phrases of, a voyage 

 round the world, a map of the world, the new 

 world, &c., this is a mere consequence of the 

 former more limited knowledge of mankind ; 

 the scientific distinction between the world, or 

 universe at large, and the earth we inhabit, is 

 now felt to be a matter of common necessity. 

 The grander and more correct expressions, 



TJNIVERSE, FABRIC OF THE UNIVERSE, CREATION, 



and NATURE,* employed to designate the con- 

 ception and origin of all matter, terrestrial as 

 well as that of the farthest stars, seem to ap- 

 prove the propriety of this distinction. To 

 make this more definite, I might say more sol- 

 emn and impressive, and also to recur to the 

 antique name, I have placed the word Cosmos 

 (KOSMOS) at the head of my work ; this term, 

 in the Homeric times, having been used to in- 

 dicate beauty and order, but by and by employ- 

 ed as a philosophical expression to indicate the 

 harmony or arrangement of the world, even of 

 the entire mass of matter filling space, of the 

 universe at large. 



The difficulty of distinguishing the normal — 

 the regular and legitimate — amidst the cease- 

 less changes of earthly phenomena, appears at 

 an early period to have directed the mind of 

 man, in an especial manner, to the uniform and 



* Weltgebftude, Weltkorper, Weltschopfung, Weltraum, 

 German ; literally Worldfabric, Worldbodies, Worldcrea- 

 tion, Worldspace. 



harmonious movements of the heavenly bodies. 

 According to Philolaus, and the concurring tes- 

 timony of the whole of antiquity('), Pythagoras 

 was the first who employed the word Cosmos 

 as synonymous with creation, with the order 

 and arrangement of the earth and heavenly 

 bodies. From the Italic philosophical school, 

 the word passed into the language of the poets 

 of nature, Parmenides and Empedocles ; and by 

 and by it was adopted by the prose writers. It 

 is beyond my purpose to expatiate in this place 

 on the various particular applications of the 

 term, according to Pythagorean views — now to 

 the planets that revolve around the focus of the 

 world, now to groups of stars in the firmament ; 

 or to explain that Philolaus, on one occasion, 

 distinguishes between Olympus, Kosmos, and 

 Uranus. In my plan of a cosmography, as this 

 was understood in times posterior to Pythago- 

 ras, and as the term is used by the unknown 

 author of the book, De Mundo, which was so 

 long ascribed to Aristotle, Cosmos is used to 

 designate the conception of the heavens and 

 earth — of the whole of the material universe. 

 The Romans, in the spirit of imitation, and 

 when they came to pay a tardy attention to 

 philosophy, adopted the word Mundus, which 

 originally signified ornament, never order, for 

 the designation of the universe. The intro- 

 duction of the technical term into the Latin 

 tongue, the literal translation of the Greek Kos- 

 mos, used in a double sense, is probably to be 

 ascribed to Ennius(^°), a disciple of the Italic 

 school, and the translator of the Pythagorean 

 philosophical speculations of Epicharmus, or of 

 one of his imitators. 



As a physical history of the world, in the wi- 

 dest sense of the word, were the materials ac- 

 cessible for such an undertaking, would pass in 

 review the changes which the Cosmos under- 

 goes in the lapse of time, from the new stars 

 which suddenly make their appearance in the 

 heavens, and the nebulae which either dissolve 

 .and disappear, or become condensed in their 

 centres, to the most insignificant vegetable tis- 

 sue that first covered the cold crust of the earth, 

 or that gradually and progressively overspreads 

 the coral reef which rises from the bosom of 

 the ocean, so would a physical description of 

 the world, on the other hand, portray the co- 

 existent in space, the simultaneous agency of 

 the natural forces, and of the concrete forms 

 that are the product of these forces. The Ex- 

 isting, however, in our conception of nature, is 

 not to be absolutely distinguished or separated 

 from the Coming into Existence ; for it is not 

 the organic alone that is to be conceived as 

 ceaselessly involved in coming into being and 

 ceasing to be ; the whole life of the globe, in 

 each stage of its existence, refers us to earlier 

 conditions that have been successively passed 

 through. The various superimposed strata, of 

 which the outer crust of our earth consists in 

 principal part, inclose the remains of a creation 

 that has almost entirely disappeared ; they give 

 us to wit •( a series of formations, which, in 

 groups, have successively supplanted one an- 

 other ; they disclose to the eye of the observer 

 the aggregate faunas and floras of bygone mil- 

 lenniums. In this sense, the Description of 

 Nature, and the History of Nature, are not en- 

 tirely to be dissevered. The geologist cannot 



