His understanding of the correspondence between the cosmos and man gave a framework of thought within which religious rituals, studies of mathematics and astronomy, and artistic activities are closely tied. Pythagoras conceived the number or numerical ratio as the universal principle of harmony and understood that human aesthetic experience in music and art is closed tied to the orderly movement of stars. Cosmos, thus, means not only the totality of the universe but it implies that the universe is ordered by the principle of harmony and balance. The term so used is parallel to the Zoroastrian term aša, the concept of a divine order, or divinely ordered creation. Pythagoras is said to have been the first philosopher to apply the term "cosmos" to the Universe, perhaps from application to the starry firmament. He, however, did not use the terminology of microcosm/macrocosm and did not have a clear anthropomorphic view of the cosmos. The idea of the correspondence or some continuity between the cosmos and human being is found in Pythagoras in an incipient form. The word cosmetics originates from the same root. Today the word is generally used as synonym of the word 'universe' (considered in its orderly aspect). It originates from the Greek term κόσμος meaning "order, orderly arrangement, ornaments," and is the antithetical concept of chaos. In its most general sense, cosmos is an orderly or harmonious system. The Ancient and Medieval cosmos as depicted in Peter Apian's Cosmographia (Antwerp, 1539).
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