[f. as prec. + -IST.] One who studies cosmogony, or offers an account of the origin or creation of the world. † b. Formerly, One who holds that the world was created or had a beginning in time.
1678. Cudworth, Intell. Syst., I. iv. § 14. (Contents) Other Pagan Theists [were] neither Theogonists nor Cosmogonists; They holding the eternity of the world and of the gods.
1736–44. H. Coventry, Phil. to Hyd., iii. (T.). The sacred cosmogonist.
1830. Lyell, Princ. Geol., I. 104. The cosmogonist has availed himself of this, as of every obscure problem in geology, to confirm his views concerning [etc.].
1873. Geikie, Gt. Ice Age, viii. 96. The astronomer and cosmogonist assure us that there was a time when this earth existed as a mass of gaseous matter.
