471 COSMOS. 



ledge of the connection of events and their causal relations is 

 assumed to be possessed by the reader, and it will conse- 

 quently be sufficient merely to indicate these events, and 

 determine the influence which they have exercised on the 

 gradual increase of the knowledge of nature as a whole. 

 Completeness, I must again repeat, is neither to be attained, 

 nor is it to be regarded as the object of such an undertaking. 

 In the announcement of the mode in which I propose treating 

 my subject, in order to preserve for the present work its 

 peculiar character, I shall, no doubt, expose myself again to 

 the animadversions of those who think less of what a book 

 contains than of that which, according to their individual 

 views, ought to be found in it. I have purposely been much 

 more circumstantial with reference to the more ancient than 

 the modern portions of history. Where the sources of infor- 

 mation are less copious the difficulty of a proper combination 

 is increased, and the opinions advanced then require to be 

 supported by the testimony of facts less generally known. I 

 would also observe that I have permitted myself to treat my 

 subject with inequality, where the enumeration of individual 

 facts afforded the advantage of imparting greater interest to 

 the narrative. 



As the recognition of the unity of the Cosmos began in an 

 intuitive presentiment, and with merely a few actual observa- 

 tions on isolated portions of the domain of nature, it seems in- 

 cumbent that we should begin our historical representation of 

 the universe, from some definite point of our terrestrial planet. 

 We will select for this purpose that sea basin, around which 

 have dwelt those nations, whose knowledge has formed the 

 basis of our western civilisation, which alone has made an 

 almost uninterrupted progress. We may indicate the main 

 streams from which Western Europe has received the ele 

 ments of the cultivation and extended views of nature, 

 but amid the diversity of these streams we are unable to 

 trace one primitive source. A deep insight into the forces of 

 nature, and a recognition of the unity of the Cosmos does not 

 appertain to a so-called primitive race a term that has beer 

 applied amid the alternations of historical views, sometimes to 

 a Semitic race in Northern Chaldea Arpaxad(the Arrapachitis 

 of Ptolemy)* and sometimes to a race of Indians and Ira- 

 * Ewald, Geschichte des Volkes Israel, bd. i. 1843, s, 332-334; La* 



