32 COSMOS. 



earth, and " prolDably extends as far as the moon." It was 

 of " a fiery nature, a brightly-beaming, pure fire-air,^ of §reat 

 subtlety and eternal serenity." This definition perfectly co- 

 incides with its etymological derivation from aldetv, to bum, 

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

 chanical views, singularly enough substituted another {ael- 

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

 tory movement.! 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 heav}' vapors of the earth, or that the dens- 

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

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

 rial difierences 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 upper, earth and fire. These extremes 



* Empedocles, v. 216, calls the ethei- -naii^avouv, brightly-beaming, 

 and therefore self-luraiuous. 



t Plato, Cratyl., 410 B., where we meet with the expression deidsT^p. 

 Arislot., De Casio, 1, 3, p. 270, Bekk., says, in opposition to Anaxagoras: 

 aWepa TrpoGuvouaaav tov uvututu tottov, utto tov -Belv c'let tov dtdiov 

 Xpovov d^e/ievoc ~rjv £~cdvvjiicv avrCo. 'Ava^ayopar de KaTaKEXpyjraL r<p 

 ovSfiaTL ~ovT(o ov KQAug • bvofid^si yap aldepa dvTi irvpog. We find this 

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

 21-34, Bekk. : " The so-called ether has an ancient desiijnation, 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 nature, 

 and therefore called it ether, a substance ^vilh 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 

 w^hich 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 this 

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

 Stoic, author of the work De Mundo, cap. 2, p. 392, Bekk.) Professor 

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

 tion of bodies in eternal motion (aufia del -deov) and of the divine (■&slov) 

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

 type of imagination, and aftbrds additifinal evidence of the inaptitude of 

 the ancients for etymological inquiry." Professor Buschmann calls at- 

 tention to a Sanscrit term, dscktra, ether or the atmosphere, \vhich looks 

 very like the Greek aWfjp, with which it has been compared by Vans 

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

 Languages of Asia and, Europe, 1828, p. 279. This word may also be 

 referred to the root {as, asch). to which the Indians attach the signifi- 

 cation of shining or beaminij. 



