[f. COSM-OS + -ISM.]
1. The conception of the cosmos or ‘order of nature’ as a self-existent, self-acting whole; the theory that explains the cosmos or universe solely according to the methods of positive science.
1861. G. J. Holyoake, Limits of Atheism (1874), 7. To believe in Nature, in its self-existence, its self-subsistence, its self-action, its eternity, infinity, and materiality, and in that only, is Affirmative Atheism. Note. This might stand for a definition of Cosmism. Ibid., Pref. Cosmism, as well as Secularism, expresses a new form of Freethought.
1861. Gresley, Sophron & N., 74. The new notion of Affirmative Atheism, or Cosmism.
1874. J. Fiske, Cosmic Philos., I. 184. In the progress from Anthropomorphism to Cosmism the religious attitude remains unchanged from the beginning to the end.
2. (See quot.: formed after patriotism.)
1873. Ruskin, in Contemp. Rev., XXI. 928. The name of the emotion would then be properly ‘Cosmism,’ and would signify the resolution of such a people to sacrifice its own special interests to those of Mankind.
