Obs. rare. [a. Fr. égomisme: see EGO and -ISM. The inserted m Littré conjectures to be derived from the pronoun me. More probably the word was a parody of some older term, such as atomisme.] The belief of one who considers himself the only being in existence.
[1727. Ramsay, Disc. sur la Mythol., 90. Une espèce de Pyrrhonisme nommé l’Egomisme, ou chacun se croit le seul être existent.]
c. 1730. A. Baxter, Enq. Nat. Soul (1745), XI. 21. That kind of Scepticism called Egomism.
1856. W. H. Thompson, in W. A. Butler, Hist. Anc. Philos., I. 80, note. It [egoism] is not more barbarous than its homonym ‘egotism,’ and much less so than ‘egomism,’ which occurs in ‘Baxter On the Soul’ (1737), where it is attributed to certain Cartesians.
