[f. ABSOLUTE a. + -ISM; after mod. Fr. absolutisme.] The practice of, or adherence to, the absolute, in theology, politics, or metaphysics.
1. Theol. ‘The dogma of God’s acting absolutely in the affair of salvation, and not being guided in his willing, or nilling, by any reason.’ Scott, Suppl. to Chambers.
1753. Chambers, Cycl. Supp., s.v. Absolutism is one of those doctrines charged on the Calvinists, for which the Lutherans refuse all union with them.
1775. Ash, Absolutism, the doctrine of predestination.
2. Polit. The practice of absolute government; despotism; an absolute state. (First used, together with ABSOLUTIST, by Gen. Perronet Thompson.)
1830. Gen. Thompson, Exerc. (1842), I. 295. The experiment of trying to have an agent of the foreigner upon the throne, with leave to bring back the old absolutism. Ibid. (1840), V. 148. The old flag of absolutism, which it might be well enough to hoist two centuries ago, but is all too late now.
1841. Spalding, Italy, I. 24. Our dislike of absolutism in government … tempts us to overcharge all its evils.
1862. M. Hopkins, Hawaii, 253. The king’s power was absolute; and as is usually the case with absolutisms, his chiefs in their separate spheres were smaller despots.
1878. Seeley, Stein, II. 231. Standing armies ushered in a period of absolutism over the whole Continent.
3. = ABSOLUTENESS; positiveness.
1854. Faraday, Lect. on Educ., 72/2. The mind naturally desires to settle upon one thing or another; to rest upon an affirmative or a negative, and that with a degree of absolutism which is irrational and improper.
