[a. Fr. abstraction (14th c. in Littré), ad. L. abstractiōn-em, n. of action f. abstract-us, pa. pple. of abstrahĕre; see ABSTRACT.]
1. The act of withdrawing; withdrawal, separation or removal; in modern usage euphem. secret or dishonest removal; pilfering, purloining.
1549. Compl. of Scotl. (1873), i. 19. He dois chestee them be the abstraction of … superfluite.
1660. R. Coxe, Power & Subj., 122. I say, Justice must have … abstraction from all affections of love, hate, or self-interest.
1794. Paley, Evid. (1817), II. ii. 65. Amongst the negative qualities of our religion … we may reckon its complete abstraction from all views of ecclesiastical or civil policy.
1818. Faraday, Exp. Res., vi. 13. He there states its production to be dependent on the abstraction of ammonia by the atmosphere.
1823. Lamb, Elia (1865), Ser. II. vii. 284. He robs nothing but the revenue,—an abstraction I never greatly cared about.
1848. Mill, Pol. Econ., 5 (1876). A wrongful abstraction of wealth from certain members of the community.
† 2. ‘Abstraction, in chemistry, denotes the drawing off, or exhaling away, a menstruum from the subject it had been put to dissolve. Some also use the word as synonymous with distillation or even cohobation.’ Chambers, Cycl. Suppl., 1753.
3. The act or process of separating in thought, of considering a thing independently of its associations; or a substance independently of its attributes; or an attribute or quality independently of the substance to which it belongs.
1647. H. More, Poems, 126. Next argument let be abstraction, When as the soul with notion precise Keeps off the corporal condition.
1710. Berkeley, Hum. Knowl., I. § 5. Can there be a nicer strain of abstraction than to distinguish the existence of sensible objects from their being perceived.
1782. Priestley, Mat. & Spir., I. x. 113. Mr. Locke … observed … that abstraction is nothing more than leaving out of a number of resembling ideas what is peculiar to each.
1855. Bain, Senses & Intell. (1864), III. iv. § 17. 606. The first in order of the scientific processes is Abstraction, or the generalizing of some property, so as to present it to the mind, apart from the other properties that usually go along with it in nature.
1859. Sir W. Hamilton, Lect. on Metaph., II. xxxiv. 285. Abstraction is thus not a positive act of mind, as it is often erroneously described in philosophical treatises,—it is merely a negation to one or more objects, in consequence of its concentration on another.
4. The result of abstracting: the idea of something which has no independent existence; a thing which exists only in idea; something visionary.
1644. Milton, Educ. (1738), 136. They present their young unmatriculated novices at first coming with the most intellective abstractions of logic and metaphysics.
1818. Hazlitt, Eng. Poets (1870), ii. 44. Death is a mighty abstraction, like Night, or Space, or Time.
1850. Gladstone, Gleanings, V. lxxvi. 218. Laws are abstractions until they are put into execution.
1851. Mariotti, Italy in 1848, i. 4. They can see nothing in it, save only an idle, chimerical abstraction.
1878. G. A. Simcox, in Academy, 605/3. Science, strictly speaking, is an abstraction, and is not and never can be adequate to the whole, even of our experience.
5. A state of withdrawal or seclusion from worldly things or things of sense.
1649. Jer. Taylor, Great Exemp. (1653), 124. Lifted up by the abstractions of this first degree of mortification.
1716. Pope, Lett. to Martha Blount,, xv., in Wks. 1751, VII. 134. If any thing was alive or awake in me, it was a little vanity, such as even those good men us’d to entertain, when the monks of their own order extoll’d their piety and abstraction.
1792. Mrs. Radcliffe, Rom. Forest, II. xiv. 105. When Madame La Motte spoke, and he strove to conceal the absence of his thoughts, he answered so intirely from the purpose, that his abstraction became still more apparent.
6. The state of mental withdrawal; inattention to things present; absence of mind.
1790. Boswell, Johnson (Rtldg.), xxiv. 215. As he [Johnson] could neither see nor hear at such a distance from the stage, he was wrapped up in grave abstraction.
1848. L. Hunt, Jar of Honey, iii. 31. Sir Isaac Newton carried abstraction far enough, when he used a lady’s finger for a tobacco-stopper.
7. Comb. abstraction-monger, one who deals with visionary ideas.
1845. J. P. Kennedy, in Weekly National Intelligencer, 25 Jan., 4/4. Sir, if Texas be blessed, as we are, with strict constructionists, and abstraction-mongers, and resolutions-of-ninety-eight-men, some of them might find room for a little nullification in this extinction of national identity.
1860. R. A. Vaughan, Ho. w. Mystics (ed. 2), II. 95. His philosophy is never that of the abstraction-monger.
