Cosmos

By uniting, under one point of view, both the phenomena of our own globe and those presented in the regions of space, we embrace the limits of the science of the 'Cosmos', and convert the physical history of the globe into the physical history of the universe, the one term being modeled upon that of the other. This science of the Cosmos is not, however, to be regarded as a mere encyclopedic aggregation of the most important and general results that have been collected together from special branches of knowledge. These results are nothing more than the materials for a vast edifice, and their combination can not constitute the physical history of the world, whose exalted part it is to show the simultaneous action and the connecting links of the forces which pervade the universe. The distribution of organic types in different climates and at different elevations -- that is to say, the geography of plants and animals -- differs as widely from botany and descriptive zoology as geology does from mineralogy, properly so called. The physical history of the universe must not, therefore, be confounded with the 'Encyclopedias of the Natural Sciences', as they have hitherto been compiled, and whose title is as vague as their limits are ill defined. In the work before us, partial facts will be considered only in relation to the whole. p 56 The higher the point of view, the greater is the necessity for a systematic mode of treating the subject in language at once animated and picturesque.

Considerations of this nature, by their tendency to generalization, impress a nobler character on the physical description of the globe, and enable us to understand how the aspect of the scenery, that is to say, the impression produced upon the mind by the physiognomy of the vegetation, depends upon the local distribution, the number, and the luxuriance of growth of the vegetable forms predominating in the general mass. The catalogues of organized beings to which was formerly given the pompous title of 'Systems of Nature', present us with an admirably connected arrangement by analogies of structure, either in the perfected development of these beings, or in the different phases which, in accordance with the views of a spiral evolution, affect in vegetables the leaves, bracts, calyx, corolla and fructifying organs; and in animals, with more or less symmetrical regularity, the cellular and fibrous tissues, and their perfect or but obscurely developed articulations. But these pretended systems of nature, however ingenious their mode of classification may be, do not show us organic beings as they are distributed in groups throughout our planet, according to their different relations of latitude and elevation above the level of the sea, and to climatic influences, which are owing to general and often very remote causes. The ultimate aim of physical geography is, however, as we have already said, to recognise unity in the vast diversity of phenomena, and by the exercise of thought and the combination of observations, to discern the constancy of phenomena in the midst of apparent changes. In the exposition of the terrestrial portion of the Cosmos, it will occasionally be necessary to descend to very special facts; but this will only be in order to recall the connection existing between the actual distribution of organic beings over the globe, and the laws of the ideal classification by natural families, analogy of internal organization and progressive evolution.

The influence of narrow-minded views peculiar to the earlier ages of civilization led in all languages to a confusion of ideas in the synonymic use of the words 'earth' and 'world', while the common expressions 'voyages round the world', 'map of the world', and 'new world', afford further illustrations of the same confusion. The more noble and precisely-defined expressions of 'system of the world', 'the planetary world', and 'creation and age of the world', relate either to the totality of the substances by which space is filled, or to the origin of the whole universe. It was natural that, in the midst of the extreme variability of phenomena presented by the surface of our globe, and the aerial ocean by which it is surrounded, man should have been impressed by the aspect of the vault of heaven, and the uniform and regular movements of the sun and planets. Thus the word Cosmos, which primitively, in the Homeric ages, indicated an idea of order and harmony, was subsequently adopted in scientific language, where it was gradually applied to the order observed in the movements of the heavenly bodies, to the whole universe, and then finally to the world in which this harmony was reflected to us. According to the assertion of Philolaus, whose fragmentary works have been so ably commented upon by Böckh, and conformably to the general testimony p 69 of antiquity, Pythagoras was the first who used the word Cosmos to designate the order that reigns in the universe, or entire world.*

[footnote] *[Greek word], in the most ancient, and at the same time most precise, definition of the word, signified 'ornament' (as an adornment for a man, a woman, or a horse); taken figuratively for [Greek word], it implied the order or adornment of a discourse. According to the testimony of all the ancients, it was Pythagoras who first used the word to designate the order in the universe, and the universe itself. Pythagoras left no writings; but ancient attestation to the truth of this assertion is to be found in several passages of the fragmentary works of Philolaus (Stob., 'Eclog.', p. 360 and 460, Heeren), p. 62, 90, in Bockh's German edition. I do not, according to the example of Nake, cite Timof Locris, since his authenticity is doubtful. Plutarch ('De plac. Phil.', ii., I) says, in the most express manner, that Pythatoras gave the name of Cosmos to the universe on account of the order which reigned throughout it; so likewise does Galen ('Hist. Phil.', p. 429). This word, together with its novel signification, passed from the schools of philosophy into the language of poets and prose writers.

Plato designates the heavenly bodies by the name of 'Uranos', but the order pervading the regions of space he too terms the Cosmos, and in his 'Timus' (p. 30 a.) he says 'that the world is an animal endowed with a soul' [Greek words]. Compare Anaxag. Claz., ed. Schaubach, p. III, and Plut. ('De plac. Phil.', in Aristotle ('De Caelo', I, 9), 'Cosmos' signifies "the universe and the order pervading it," but it is likewise considered as divided in space into two parts -- the sublunary world, and the world above the moon. ('Meteor.', I., w, 1, and I., 3, 13, p. 339, 'a', and 340, 'b', Bekk.) The definition of Cosmos, which I have already cited is taken from Pseudo-Aristoteles 'de Mundo', cap. ii. (p. 391); the passage referred to is as follows: [Greek words]. 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 Philologica', 1781, p. 347, 445; 'Dissertation upon the Epistles of Phalaris', 1817, p. 254); on the historical existence of Zaleucus, legislator of Leucris, in Nake's excellent work, 'Sched. Crit.', 1812, p. 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 immensity of space, and each composed of a sun and a moon. (Anax. Claz., 'Fragm.', p. 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, [Greek words], 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. Bockh has made known inscriptions in praise of Trajan and Adrian ('Corpus Inscr. Graec.', I, n. 334 and 1036), in which [Greek word] occurs for [Greek word] 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 p 70 [Footnote continues] into three parts, the 'Olympus, Cosmos' and 'Ouranos' (Stob., i., p. 488; Philolaus, p.

From the Italian school of philosophy, the expression passed, in this signification, into the language of those early poets p 71 of 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 Pythagorean views, Philolaus distinguishes between Olympus, Uranus, or the heavens, and Cosmos, or how the same word, used in a plural sense, could be applied to certain heavenly bodies (the planets) revolving round one central focus of the world, or to groups of stars. In this work I use the word Cosmos in conformity with the Hellenic usage of the term subsequently to the time of Pythagorus, and in accordance with the precise definition given of it in the treatise entitled 'De Mundo', which was long erroneously attributed to Aristotle. It is the assemblage of all things in heaven and earth, the universality of created things constituting the perceptible world. If scientific terms had not long been diverted from their true verbal signification, the present work ought rather to have borne the title of 'Cosmography', divided into 'Uranography' and 'Geography.' The Romans, in their feeble essays on philosophy, imitated the Greeks by applying to the universe the term 'mundus', which, in its primary meaning, indicated nothing more than ornament, and did not even imply order or regularity in the disposition of parts. It is probable that the introduction into the language of Latium of this technical term as an equivalent for Cosmos, in its double signification, is due to Ennius,* who was a follower of the Italian school, and the translator of the writings of Epicharmus and some of his pupils on the Pythagorean philosophy.

External nature may be opposed to the intellectual world, as if the latter were not comprised within the limits of the former, or nature may be opposed to art when the latter is defined as a manifestation of the intellectual power of man; but these contrasts, which we find reflected in the most cultivated languages, must not lead us to separate the sphere of nature from that of mind, since such a separation would reduce the physical science of the world to a mere aggregation of empirical specialities. Science does not present itself to man until mind conquers matter in striving to subject the result of experimental investigation to rational combinations. Science is the labor of mind applied to nature, but the external world has no real existence for us beyond the image reflected within ourselves through the medium of the senses. As intelligence and forms of speech, thought and its verbal symbols, are united by secret and indissoluble links, so does the external world blend almost unconsciously to ourselves with our ideas and feelings. "External phenomena," says Hegel, in his 'Philosophy of History', "are in some degree translated in our inner representations." The objective world, conceived and reflected within us by thought, is subjected to the eternal and necessary conditions of our intellectual being. The activity of the mind exercises itself on the elements furnished to it by the perceptions of the senses. Thus, in the p 77 early ages of mankind, there manifests itself in the simple intuition of natural facts, and in the efforts made to comprehend them, the germ of the philosophy of nature. These ideal tendencies vary, and are more or less powerful, according to the individual characteristics and moral dispositions of nations, and to the degrees of their mental culture, whether attained amid scenes of nature that excite or chill the imagination.

[footnote] *See the numerical results in p. 328-333 of the volume just named. From the geodesical levelings which, at my request, my friend General Bolivar caused to be taken by Lloyd and Falmare, in the years 1828 and 1829, it was ascertained that the level of the Pacific is at the utmost 3 1/2 feet higher than that of the Caribbean Sea; and even that at different hours of the day each of the seas is in turn the higher, according to their respective hours of flood and ebb. If we reflect that in a distance of 64 miles, comprising 933 stations of observation, an error of three feet would be very apt to occur, we may say that in these new operations we have further confirmation of the equilibrium of the waters which communicate round Cape Horn. (Arago, in the 'Annuaire du Bureau des Longitudes pour' 1831, p. 319.) I had inferred from barometrical observations instituted in 1799 and 1804, that if there were any difference between the level of the Pacific and the Atlantic (Carribean Sea), it could not exceed three meters (nine feet three inches). See my 'Relat. Hist.', t. iii., p. 555-557, and 'Annales de Chimie', t. i., p. 55-64. The measurements, which appear to establish an excess of height for the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, and for those of the northern part of the Adriatic Sea, obtained by combining the trigonometrical operations of Delcrois and Choppin with those of the Swiss and Austrian engineers, are open to many doubts. Notwithstanding the form of the Adriatic, it is improbable that the level of its waters in its northern portion should be 28 feet higher than that of the Mediterranean at Marseilles, and 25 feet higher than the level of the Atlantic Ocean. See my 'Asie Centrale', t. ii., p. 332.

The application of the microscope increases, in the most striking manner, our impression of the rich luxuriance of animal life in the ocean, and reveals to the astonished senses a consciousness of the universality of life. In the oceanic depths, far exceeding the height of our loftiest mountain chains, every stratum of water is animated with polygastric sea-worms, Cyclidiae and Ophrydinae. The waters swarm with countless hosts of small luminiferous animalcules, Mammaria (of the order of Acalephae), Crustacea, Peridinea, and circling Nereides, which when attracted to the surface by peculiar meteorological conditions, convert every wave into a foaming band of flashing light. p 310 The abundance of those marine animalcules, and the animal matter yielded by their rapid decomposition are so vast that the sea water itself becomes a nutrient fluid to many of the larger animals. However much this richness in animated forms, and this multitude of the most various and highly-developed microscopic organisms may agreeably excite the fancy, the imagination is even more seriously, and, I might say, more solemnly moved by the impression of boundlessness and immeasureability, which are presented to the mind by every sea voyage. All who possess an ordinary degree of mental activity, and delight to create to themselves an inner world of thought, must be penetrated with the sublime image of the infinite, when gazing around them on the vast and boundless sea, when involuntarily the glance is attracted to the distant horizon, where air and water blend together, and the stars continually rise and set before the eyes of the mariner. This contemplation of the eternal play of the elements is clouded, like every human joy, by a touch of sadness and of longing.

[footnote] *Tacitus, in his speculations on the inhabitants of Britain ('Agricola', cap. ii.), distinguishes with much judgment between that which may be owing to the local climatic relations, and that which, in the immigrating races, may be owing to the unchangeable influence of a hereditary and transmitted type. "Britanniam qui mortales initio coluerunt, indigenae an advecti, ut inter barbaros, parum coompertum. Habitus corporis varii, alque ex eo argumenta; namque rutilae Caledoniam habitantium comae, magni artus Germanicam originem adseverant. Silu ram colorati vultus et torti plerumque crines, et posita contra Hispania, Iberos veteres trajecisse, easque cedes occupasse fidem faciunt: proximi Gallis, et similes sunt: seu durante originis vi; seu procurrentibus in diversa terris, positio coeli corporibus habitum dedit." Regarding the persistency of types of conformation in the hot and cold regions of the earth, and in the mountainous districts of the New Continent, see my 'Relation Historique', t. i., p. 498, 503, and t. ii., p. 572, 574.

The different races of mankind are forms of one sole species, by the union of two of whose members descendants are propagated. They are not different species of a genus, since in that case their hybrid descendants would remain unfruitful. But whether the human races have descended from several primitive races of men, or from one alone, is a question that can not be determined from experience."* [footnote] *Joh. Muller, 'Physiologie des Menschen', bd. ii., s. 768. Geographical investigations regarding the ancient 'seat', the so-called 'cradle of the human race', are not devoid of a mythical p 355 character. "We do not know," says Wilhelm von Humboldt, in an unpublished work 'On the Varieties of Languages and Nations', "either from history or from authentic tradition, any period of time in which the human race has not been divided into social groups. Whether the gregarious condition was original, or of subsequent occurrence, we have no historic evidence to show. The separate mythical relations found to exist independently of one another in different parts of the earth, appear to refute the first hypothesis, and concur in ascribing the generation of the whole human race to the union of one pair. The general prevalence of this myth has cause it to be regarded as a traditionary record transmitted from the primitive man to his descendants. But this very circumstance seems rather to prove that it has no historical foundation, but has simply arisen from an identity in the mode of intellectual conception, which has every where led man to adopt the same conclusion regarding identical phenomena; in the same manner as many myths have doubtlessly arisen, not from any historical connection existing between them, but rather from an identity in human thought and imagination.

The distribution of mankind is therefore only a distribution into 'varieties', which are commonly designated by the somewhat indefinite term 'races'. As in the vegetable kingdom, and in the natural history of birds and fishes, a classification into many small families is based on a surer foundation than p 356 where large sections are separated into a few but large divisions; so it also appears to me, that in the determination of races a preference should be given to the establishment of small families of nations. Whether we adopt the old classification of my master, Blumenbach, and admit 'five' races (the Caucasian, Mongolian, American, Ethiopian, and Malayan), or that of Prichard, into 'seven races'* (the Iranian, Turanian, American, Hottentots and Bushmen, Negroes, Papuas, and Alfourons), we fail to recognize any typical sharpness of definition, or any general or well-established principle in the division of these groups. [footnote] *Prichard, op. cit., vol. i., p. 247.

But language is a part and parcel of the history of the development of mind; and however happily the human intellect, under the most dissimilar physical conditions, may unfettered pursue a self-chosen track, and strive to free itself from the dominion of terrestrial influences, this emancipation is never perfect. There ever remains, in the natural capacities of the mind, a trace of something that has been derived from the influences of race or of climate, whether they be associated with a land gladdened by cloudless azure skies, or with the vapory atmosphere of an insular region. As, therefore, richness and grace of language are unfolded from the most luxuriant p 358 depths of thought, we have been unwilling wholly to disregard the bond which so closely links together the physical world with the sphere of intellect and of the feelings by depriving this general picture of nature of those brighter lights and tints which may be borrowed from considerations, however slightly indicated, of the relations existing between races and languages. While we maintain the unity of the human species, we at the same time repel the depressing assumption of superior and inferior races of men.*

With these words, which draw their charm from the depths of feeling, let a brother be permitted to close this general description of the natural phenomena of the universe. From the remotest nebulae and from the revolving double stars, we have descended to the minutest organisms of animal creation, whether manifested in the depths of ocean or on the surface of our globe, and to the delicate vegetable germs which clothe the naked declivity of the ice-crowned mountain summit; and here we have been able to arrange these phenomena according to partially known laws; but other laws of a more mysterious nature rule the higher spheres of the organic world, in which is comprised the human species in all its varied conformation, its creative intellectual power, and the languages to which it has given existence. A physical delineation of nature terminates at the point where the sphere of intellect begins, and a new world of mind is opened to our view. It marks the limit, but does not pass it. p 360 is blank p 361 ADDITIONAL NOTES TO THE PRESENT EDITION. MARCH, 1849. __________