COSMOGONY (Gr. kosmos, the universe; gon, generation) is the (so-called) science of the formation of the universe. It is thus distinguished from cosmography, which is the science of the parts of the universe as we behold. it (a science embodied in the work of Humboldt, entitled Cosmos), and from cosmology, which reasons on the actual and per manent state of the world as it is. Geogony, which confines itself to the formation of the earth, and speculative geology, are but subdivisions of cosmogony.
Cosmogonists proper may be divided into two classes—the theistical, and the pantheis tical. According to theistic C., the world of matter and order sprang at once into exist ence at the Omni tic fiat. The chief speculations from this point of view, have of late been regarding the date, if the expression may be used, of the world's formation, and, looking to the facts of geology and astronomy, the precise condition of the cosmos when evoked; how much, in short, of the evolution, since the date, is attributable to the opera tion of secondary causes. The pantheists hold the universe, on the other band, to be the very body and being of Deity, and as such to have been from all eternity. God is all things, and all things are God—a conclusion reached from pure ci priori reasoning, and that seems to exclude all further inquiry.
Men of science, in modern times, stopping short of an actual C. or genesis of the world, have pushed their inquiries into the order of development of its present state, -which they, or at least some of them, aver to have taken place from the first by the divine power exercised in the manner of natural law. assume the existence of matter; and with them there is no proper beginning of things, but an eternal round, under fixed laws of growth and decay.
In cosmogonical speculations, heat, air, atoms with rotatory motions, numbers—all in turn have had the honor of being recognized as the fountain and causes of things. Latterly, there has been a tendency to dynamical hypotheses, not only of the formation of our own rotating globe. but of our system, and of all similar systems in space. Of these, the chief is that of Laplace, founded on observation of the mutual relations of the planets, their common direction in rotation and revolution, their general conformity to one plane, etc.; taken in connection with such facts as the rings of Saturn and the fun damental unity of the asteroids. Thus arose the Nebular Theory (q.v.), which at one time had 'a support from sir William Herschel's observations on the nebulas; of which, however, the discoveries by lord Posse's telescope in a great measure deprived it. Following up this view of a formation of the globes by natural causes, there have been speculations as to the commencement and progress of organic life upon them by similar means: these are to be found in the Philosophic Zoologique of Lamarck; the Ves tiges of the Natural History of Creation; and in the work of Charles Darwin on the Origin of Species by a Principle of Natural Selection; all of which involve great differ ences of view among themselves, though all meeting in one point—an assimilation of the processes of creation to the ordinary natural course of things presumed to be arranged and conducted by the Deity.