56 SCIENCE OP THE COSMOS. 



world/' and others of a similar nature, relate either to the 

 whole of the bodies with which celestial space is filled, or to 

 the origin of the entire universe. 



it was natural that, amidst the extreme variability of the 

 phenomena presented by the surface of the earth and the 

 surrounding aerial ocean, men should have been impressed 

 by the aspect of the vault of heaven and the regular and 

 uniform movements of the sun and planets. The word 

 Cosmos, which, in its primitive signification in the Homeric 

 times, expressed the ideas of ornament and order, was 

 subsequently applied to the order and harmony observed in 

 the movements of the heavenly bodies ; then to those bodies 

 generally ; and finally, to the universe itself. It is asserted 

 by Philolaus, the genuine fragments of whose writings have 

 been commented on with so much sagacity by M. Boekh, 

 that, according to the general testimony of antiquity ( 27 ), 

 " Pythagoras was the first who used the word Cosmos to 

 express the order which reigns in the universe, or the 

 world or universe itself." From the Italic school of 

 philosophy, the term used in this sense passed into the 

 language of the poets of nature, Parmeuides and Empe- 

 docles, and thence into that of prose writers. We need not 

 enter here into the distinction, which, following the Pytha- 

 gorean views, Philolaus draws between Olympus, Uranus, 

 and Cosmos, or how the latter word, used in the plural, has 

 been applied individually to celestial bodies (the planets) 

 circling round the central " hearth," or focus of the world, 

 or to " world-islands," or groups of stars. In my work, 

 the word Cosmos is employed as signifying the heavens and 

 the earth, or the whole world of sense, or the material uni- 

 verse; agreeably to general Hellenic usage subsequently to the 



