[ad. L. antinomia, a. Gr. ἀντινομία, f. ἀντί against + νόμος law: cf. Fr. antinomie (16th c.).]
1. A contradiction in a law, or between two equally binding laws.
1592. Dee, in Chetham Misc., I. 7. In antinomys, imagined to be in the law, I had good hap to finde out their agreementes.
1659. Lestrange, Alliance of Div. Off., 239. An antinomy, a justle between the Canon laws of our Church and the law of the land.
1781. Gibbon, Decl. & F., xliv. The antinomies or contradictions of the Code and Pandects.
1875. Poste, Gaius, II. 220. We have here a case of Antinomy (contradictory laws) in Justinian’s legislation.
b. A conflict of authority.
1842. De Quincey, Cicero, Wks. VI. 224. The capital fault in the operative constitution of Rome had long been in the antinomies, if I may be pardoned for so learned a term, of the public service.
† 2. A contradictory law, statute or principle; an authoritative contradiction. Obs.
1643. Milton, Divorce, II. iii. (1847), 139/2. That his holiest people might as it were by his own antinomy, or counterstatute, live unreproved.
1649. Jer. Taylor, Gt. Exemp., Add. iv. 48. The signes which the Angel gave … are direct antinomies to the lusts of the flesh. Ibid. (1656), Deus Justif. An Antidote, and Antinomy of their great objection.
3. A contradiction between conclusions that seem equally logical, reasonable or necessary; a paradox; intellectual contradictoriness. (After Kant.)
1802. H. C. Robinson, Diary, I. 144. Hence the antinomies of pure reason.
1857. T. Webb, Intell. Locke, ix. 175. The imagination was distracted on every side by counter inconceivabilities, the Mind was divided against itself; Antinomy was its very law.
1877. Caird, Philos. Kant, II. xvi. 566. Criticism must discover the nature and extent of the antinomies of reason, and must show that they are dogmatically insoluble; or that, whichever of the alternative solutions we adopt, we are led into absurdity and contradiction.
