Copy 1, Volume 1

Cosmos, a sketch of a physical description of the universe / by Alexander von Humboldt ; translated from the German by E.C. Otté.

Alexander von Humboldt

Date:: 1849-1858

Credit: Cosmos, a sketch of a physical description of the universe / by Alexander von Humboldt ; translated from the German by E.C. Otté. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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$nature, Parmenides and Empedocles, and from thence into the works of prose writers. We will not here enter into a discussion of the manner in which, according to the Pytha- gorean views, Philolaüs distinguishes between Olympus, ovpavov ical yrjg Kai rüv iv rovrvtg Trepiexopevcov tyvaeutv. Aeyerai Ft Kal t7rsp(og KÖcrXog i] rutv o\wv ra%ig re Kai dLcucooprjmg, vrrb 9eü>v re icai bid Oewv tyvXarropkvi7. Most of the passages occurring in Greek writers on the word Cosmos, may be found collected together in the controversy between Richard Bentley and Charles Boyle (Opuscula Philologiea, 1781, pp. 347, 445 ; Dissertation upon the Epistles of Phalaris, 1817, p. 254); on the historical existence of Zaleucus, legislator of Leucris, in Näkt's excellent work, Sched. crit., 1812, pp. 9, 15 ; and finally, in Theophilus Schmidt, Ad Cleom. cycl. theor., met. I, 1 p. ix., 1 and 99. Taken in a more limited sense, the word Cosmos is also used in the plural (Plut., 1, 5,) either to designate the stars (Stob., 1, p. 514; Plut., 11, 13,) or the innumerable systems scattered like islands through the immens».y of space, and each composed of a sun and a moon. (Anax. Claz., Fr&jm. pp. 89, 93, 120 ; Brandis, Gesch. der Griechisch-Römischen Philosophie, b. i., s. 252 (History of the Greco-Roman Philosophy). Each of these groups forming thus a Cosmos, the universe, to ttclv, the word must be understood in a wider sense (Plut. ii, 1.) It was not until long after the time of the Ptolemies that the word was applied to the earth. Böckh has made known inscriptions in praise of Trajan and Adrian (Corpus Inscr. Grcec., 1, n. 334 and 1306) in which Koojxog occurs for o’iKovpevr), in the same manner as we 'still use the term world to signify the earth alone. We have already mentioned the singular division of the regions of space into three parts, the Olympus, Cosmos, and Ouranos, (Stob. 1, p. 488 ; Philolaüs, pp. 94, 202) ; this division applies to the different regions surrounding that mysterious focus of the universe, the 'Ecrria rov rravrog of the Pythagoreans. In the fragmentary passage in which this division is found, the term Ouranos designates Che innermost region, situated between the moon and earth; this is the domain of changing things. The middle region where the planets circulate in an invariable and harmonious order, is, in accordance with the special con- ceptions entertained of the universe, exclusively termed Cosmos, whilst the word Olympus is used to express the exterior or igneous region. Bopp, the profound philologist, has remarked, “ that we may deduce, as Pott has done, Etymol. Forschungen, th. i., s. 39 and 252 (Etymol. Researches) the word K6apog from the Sanscrit root ’sud\ purificari, by assuming two conditions ; first, that the Greek k in Koapog comes from the palatial g, which Bopp represents by ’s and Pott by p, (in the same manner as 6ska, decern, taihun in Gothic, comes from the Indian word däsan),and next, that the Indian d' corresponds as a general rule with the Greek 9 ( Vergleichende Grammatik, § 99,—Comparative Grammar), which shows the relation icoapog (for k69yog) with the Sanscrit root ’sud’, whence is also derived Ka9ap.6g. Another Indian term for the world is gagat (pronounced dschagat)f which is, properly speaking, the present participle of the verb$