Note 180 — DISCOURSE VI.

The word κοσμος originally signified ornament (chiefly perhaps of dress); figuratively it came to denote order. It was first applied by Pythagoras to the universe, from the conception of the order, which reigns in it (Plut., de Plac. Phil., ii. 1). From schools of philosophy it passed into the language of poets and writers of elevated prose. It is somewhat singular that the Romans, possibly from Greek influence, came to apply "mundus" by the same process to the world, as it had also originally signified ornament, especially of female dress (See Richard Bentley against Boyle, Opera Philol., 347-445, and Notes, Humboldt's Cosmos, xiii.). In the LXX. κοσμος does not appear as the translation of שׂלָם its spiritual equivalent in Hebrew; but very often in the sense of "ornament" and "order." (See Tromm., Concord. Gr. in LXX., 1, 913), but it is found as world several times in the Apocrypha (Wisdom vi. 26, vii. 18, ix. 3, xi. 18, xv. 14; 2 Mac. iii. 12, vii. 9-23, viii. 18, xiii. 14).