Kosmos (usually referred to in English as "Cosmos") is an influential treatise on science and nature written by the German scientist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt. Kosmos began as a lecture series delivered by Humboldt at the University of Berlin, and was published in five volumes between 1845 and 1862 (the fifth was posthumous and completed based on Humboldt's notes). In the first volume of Kosmos, Humboldt paints a general “portrait of nature”, describing the physical nature of outer space and the earth. In the second volume he describe the history of science. Widely read by academics and laymen alike, it applied the ancient Greek view of the orderliness of the cosmos (the harmony of the universe) to the Earth, suggesting that universal laws applied as well to the apparent chaos of the terrestrial world. Humboldt goes on to suggest that when one contemplates the beauty of the cosmos, one can obtain personal inspiration and a beneficial, if subjective, awareness about life.