70 COSMOS 



From the Italian school of philosophy, the expression pas/J- 

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



into three parts, the Olympus, Cosmos, and Ouranos (Stob., i., p. 488 ; 

 Philolatis, p. 94, 202) ; this division apphes to the different regions sur 

 rounding that mysterious focus of the universe, the 'Earia rod Txavrot, 

 of the Pythagoreans. In the fragmentary passage in w^hich 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 concep- 

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

 word Olympxis is used to express the exterior or igneous region. Bopp, 

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

 has done, Etymol. Forschungen, th. i., s. 39 and 252 {Elymol. Research' 

 es), the word Kogijlo^ from the Sanscrit root ^sud\ jmrificari, by assum- 

 ing two conditions; first, that the Greek k in Kocfxog comes from the 

 palatial f , which Bopp represents by 's and PoTt by g (in the same man- 

 ner as deKa, decern, taihun in Gothic, comes from the Indian word dd- 

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

 the Greek d ( Vergleichende Grammatik, ^ 99 — Comparative Grammar), 

 which shows the relation of Koafioc (for Kbdjxoq) with the Sanscrit root 

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

 world is gagai (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 Kooiioq is intimately associated with /ca^o, 

 or rather with KaLvv/2ai, whence we have KeKaafj-evoc or KEKadfiivo^. 

 Welcker {Eine Kretische Col. in Theben, s. 23 — A Cretan Colony m 

 Thebes) combines with this the name Kdd/zof, as in Hesychius Kudfio^ 

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

 was introduced among the Romans, the word mundus, which at first had 

 only the primary meaning o{ KOCfioq (female ornament), was applied to 

 designate the entire universe. Ennius seems to have been the fii-st 

 who ventured upon this innovation. In one of the fragments of this 

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

 gil, we find the word used in its novel mode of acceptation : ^^ Mundus 

 caeli vastus constitit sileniip" (Sat., vi., 2). Cicero also says, '^ Quern nos 

 lucentem imindum vocamns'^ (Timx-us, S. dc 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 Sola 

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

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

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

 old German, worold in old Saxon, and veruld in Ang.b-Saxon, was, ac- 

 cording to James Grimm's interpretation, a period of time, an age (««- 

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

 figured to themselves mundu$ 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 limited sense, the word appears to hava 

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

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



