[f. as next + -ISM.]
1. The practice of the Convulsionaries of the 18th century: see prec.
1753. Monthly Rev., VIII. 486. A kind of Convulsianism, a fanatic sect of later date, but equally, if not more fatal to the interests of a true and reasonable religion.
1870. Public Opinion, 16 July. Convulsionism.—The scenes in the St. Médard churchyard remind one of certain epidemics of the Middle Ages.
2. The doctrine of geological convulsionists; catastrophism.
1914. J. L. Lobley, Age of the World, 68. What is commonly called uniformitarianism in geology has been displaced by the present evolutionary geology, even as uniformitarianism displaced catastrophism or convulsionism.
