SCIENCE OF THE COSMOS. 55 



perhaps more adventurous than the enterprise itself, circum- 

 scribed within the limits which I have proposed. In all 

 my previous investigations, I have hitherto avoided, as much 

 as possible, the introduction of new names to express general 

 ideas. When I have attempted to enlarge our nomenclature, 

 it has been solely in the specialities of descriptive botany and 

 zoology, when objects observed for the first time rendered new 

 names necessary. The expression of physical cosmography, 

 or a physical description of the universe, is formed on that oi 

 physical geography, or a physical description of the earth, 

 which has long been used. The powerful genius of Des- 

 cartes has left us some fragments of a great work, which he 

 intended should appear under the title of " Monde," and 

 for which he had begun to study special subjects, and even 

 human anatomy. The little used, but precise expression of 

 the science of the Cosmos, recals to the inhabitant of our 

 globe that we are treating of a wider horizon, of the assem- 

 blage of all the material things with which space is filled, 

 from the remotest nebulae, to the climatic distribution of 

 the thin vegetable tissues of variously coloured lichens, 

 which clothe the surface of rocks. 



In every language, views entertained in the infancy of 

 nations have led to a confusion of the ideas of earth and 

 world : the common expressions of " voyages round the 

 world/' " map of the world/' " new world," are instances 

 of this confusion. The more accurate and more noble ex- 

 pressions* of "system of the world/' "creation of the 



* Our language does not possess all the expressions referred to by M. de 

 Humboldt. We have no direct English equivalents for the expressive Ger- 

 man terms " Weltgebaude," "Weltraum," aiid "Weltkorper." 



* NSLATOR. 



