In ancient astronomy, the word cosmical means "occurring at sunrise", and designates the rising, or setting, of the stars at that time: Cosmical physics is a term broadly applied to the totality of those branches of science which consider the phenomena of the cosmos, or universe, and their explanations by the laws of physics.

Cosmical physics includes geomagnetism, seismology, the tides, meteorology as related to cosmical causes, the aurora, meteoric phenomena, and the physical constitution of the heavenly bodies generally.