Cosmos, Vol. 5

The passage (Iliad XII, 86), where it is said of the Trojans that they were divided five-fold, standing in five divisions, could almost suffice by itself to demonstrate the impossibility of the concept "to make shining" for kosmeo The author is arguing against the then-common idea that 'kosmos' originally meant 'beauty' or 'shine', favoring 'order' instead. Among all the numerous Homeric passages that one can enumerate, there is not a single one in which the meaning "brilliance" would be possible; and only in two does Kosmos original: κόσμος apparently take the meaning of "ornament" or approach the same. As a common root form 12 for kosmos and for kekasthai original: κεκάσθαι; an archaic Greek verb meaning 'to excel' or 'to be equipped', one can posit with reasonable certainty kad, with the meaning "to divide," originally likely "to split": related to the Old Indian chid, the Greek schizo, and the Latin scindo These are all Indo-European cognates meaning to cut or separate, like the English word 'scissors'.

To the results of this thorough investigation by Dr. Leo Meyer, my famous friend and teacher Böckh August Böckh (1785–1867), a monumental figure in 19th-century classical scholarship gives full approval. "The concept of ordering rests," according to him as well, "essentially on that of separating; the latter is evidently the original one: and in order not to limit the proof to Homer, it should be remembered that in Crete the highest authority, the organizers and rulers of the state, were called kosmoi (also kosmioi): a name that certainly dates from a very early time. Likewise, we find among the Epizephyrian Locrians A Greek colony in Southern Italy the kosmopolis as the magistrate. Also instructive is the Anaxagorean use of the word as 'separation' in the remarkable passage: "All things were together, then Mind came and arranged them" original: πάντα χρήματα ἦν ὁμοῦ, εἶτα νοῦς ἐλθὼν αὐτὰ διεκόσμησε. This is a foundational quote in Greek philosophy regarding the ordering of the universe (Schaubach in the fragments of Anaxagoras p. 128, 111); and that Democritus used the word diakosmos where it can only mean something ordered. Also, that Leo Meyer brings the lost verb kazo together with kosmos is indisputably correct; and you yourself have already in your work—