70 COSMOS. 



From the Italian school of philosophy, the expression pass- 

 ed, in this signification, into the language of those early poets 



into three parts, the Olympus, Cosmos, and Oui\tnos (Stob., i., p. 488; 

 Philolatis, p. 94, 202) ; this division applies to the dilTerent regions sur 

 i-Qunding that mysterious focus of the universe, the 'Earia rov iravTot, 

 of the Pythagoreans. In the fragmentary passage in which this divi- 

 sion is found, the term Ouranos designates the innermost region, situ- 

 ated between the moon and earth ; this is the domain of changing 

 things. The middle region, where the planets circulate in an invaria- 

 ble and harmonious order, is, in accordance with the special coucep- 

 tions entertained of tlie universe, exclusively termed Cosmos, while the 

 word Olympus is used to express the exterior or igneous region. 13opp, 

 the profound philologist, has remarked, that we may deduce, as Pott 

 has done, Etymol. Forschungeii, th. i., s. 39 and 252 {Eiymol. Research- 

 es), the word Koa^og from the Sanscrit root 'sud\ purificari, by assum- 

 ing two conditions; first, that the Greek k in koo^oq comes from the 

 palatial c, which Bopp represents by 's and Pott by c (in the same man- 

 ner as diKa, decern, taih^m in Gothic, comes from the Indian word del- 

 ean), and, next, that the Indian d' corresponds, as a general rule, with 

 the Greek 6 ( Vergleichende Grammatik, $ 99 — Comparative Grammar), 

 which shows the relation of Koa/xoc (for Kodfxog) with the Sanscrit root 

 ^sud\ whence is also derived Kada^ibg. Another Indian term for the 

 world is gagat (pronounced dschagat), which is, properly speaking, the 

 present participle of the verb gagdmi (I go), the root of which is gd. 

 In restricting ourselves to the circle of Hellenic etymologies, we find 

 {Etymol. M., p. 532, 12) that Koojiog is intimately associated with wafw, 

 or rather with Kacvvfiac, whence we have KeKaafievog or KCKac^fxEvog. 

 Welcker (Eine Kretische Col. in Thebcn, s. 23 — A Cretan Colony in 

 Thebes) combines with this the name Kadjiog, as in Hesychius Kud/nog 

 signifies a Cretan suit of anus. When the scientific language of Greece 

 w^as introduced among the Romans, the word mundus, which at first had 

 only the primary meaning of /cda/^of (female ornament), was applied to 

 designate the entire universe. Ennius seems to have been the first 

 who ventui-ed upon this innovation. In one of the fragments of this 

 poet, preserved by Macrobius, on the occasion of his quarrel with Vir- 

 gil, we fiud the word used in its novel mode of acceptation : " Micitdus 

 coeli vastus constitit silentio''^ (Sat., vi., 2). Cicero also says, ^'Qvem nos 

 lucentem mundum vocamus^^ (Timajus, S. de Univer., cap. x.). The 

 Sanscrit root mand, from which Pott derives the Latin mundus {Etym. 

 Forsch., th. i.,s. 240), combines the double signification of shining and 

 adorning. Loka designates in Sanscrit the world and people in general, 

 in the same manner as the French word monde, and is derived, accord- 

 ing to Bopp, from Idk (to see and shine); it is the same with the Scla- 

 vonic root swjet, which means both light and icorld. (Grimm, Deutsche 

 Gramm., b. iii., s. 394 — German Grammar.) The word icelt, which 

 the Germans make use of at the present day, and which was weralt in 

 old German, toorold in old Saxon, and veruld in Anglo-Saxon, was, ac- 

 cording to .Tames Grimm's interpi-etation, a period ol time, an age (««- 

 cnlum), rather than a term used for the world in space. The Etruscans 

 figured to themselves mundus as an inverted dome, symmetrically op- 

 posed to the celestial vault (Otfried MUller's Etrusken, th. ii., s. 96, 

 &c.). Taken in a still more hmited sense, the word appears to have 

 signified among the Goths the terrestrial surface girded by seas (marei, 

 meri), the merigard, literally, garden of seas. 



