a. (sb.) [ad. late L. subjectīvus, f. subjectus, -um SUBJECT sb. So F. subjectif, It. sobiettivo, etc., G. subjektiv.]
† 1. Pertaining or relating to one who is subject; belonging to or characteristic of a political subject; hence, submissive, obedient. Obs.
c. 1450. trans. De Imitatione, I. xiv. 16. If þou leene more to þin ovne reson þan to þe subiectiue vertu of Ihesu crist, it wol be late or þou be a man illuminate, for god wol haue us parfitly suget to him.
1595. in Shaks. Cent. Praise, 16. For thousands vowes to them subjective dutie.
1606. J. Davies (Heref.), Select Sec. Husband (1616), F 6. Who honor’d him … And no subiectiue dutie did forget.
1648. Symmons, Vind., 336. Neither is the King,… of so subjective a nature as to submit his affairs wholly to his wife’s guidance.
a. 1683. Owen, Posth. Serm., Wks. 1851, IX. 97. Subjective perfection, in respect of the person, obeying, is his sincerity and freedom from guile.
1706. De Foe, Jure Divino, XI. 246. The great Subjective Article concurs, To make him all Mens King as well as ours.
2. Pertaining to the subject as to that in which attributes inhere; inherent; hence, pertaining to the essence or reality of a thing; real, essential.
1642. O. Sedgwick, Eng. Preserv., 34. Many prayings, and fastings,… and other doings have found no acceptation with God, nor wrought any subjective alterations in persons.
1647. Jer. Taylor, Lib. Proph., 133. That this confession [of St. Peter] was the objective foundation of Faith, and Christ and his Apostles the subjective, Christ principally, and S. Peter instrumentally.
1675. Burthogge, Causa Dei, 395. All how Barbarous … soever, have … a Light within them, and a Light without them, Subjective and Objective Light.
1844. Gladstone, Glean. (1879), V. 81. Nothing seems more plain than that her [the Church of England’s] subjective materials are after all too solid … to permit … the serious apprehension of any such contingency.
1882. Farrar, Early Chr., I. 320. An illustration of the method whereby the subjective righteousness of God can become the objective righteousness (or justification) of man.
3. Relating to the thinking subject, proceeding from or taking place within the subject; having its source in the mind; (in the widest sense) belonging to the conscious life. (Correlative to OBJECTIVE a. 2 b.)
1707. Oldfield, Ess. Impr. Reason, II. xix. Objective certainty, or that of the thing, as really it is in itself … a Subjective certainty of it in the infinite Mind.
1725. Watts, Logic, II. ii. § 8. Objective certainty, is when the proposition is certainly true in itself; and subjective, when we are certain of the truth of it. The one is in things, the other is in our minds.
1796. Nitsch’s View Kant’s Princ., 224. We are certain that every point in the circumference of a circle is at an equal distance from the centre; for we have sufficient objective and subjective reasons to this truth.
1798. W. Taylor, in Monthly Rev., XXV. 585. Were we endeavouring to characterize this work, in the dialect peculiar to Professor Kant, we should observe, that its intensive like its extensive, magnitude is small:… its subjective is as slight as its objective worth.
1801. Encycl. Brit., Suppl. II. 356/1. The motives to consider a proposition as true, are either objective, i. e. taken from an external object,… or … subjective, i. e. they exist only in the mind of him who judges.
1804–6. Syd. Smith, Mor. Philos. (1850), 54. His subjective elements, and his pure cognition.
1830. Blackw. Mag., XXVII. 10. Knowledge subjective is knowledge of objects in their relation to, and as they affect the mind knowing.
1832. Austin, Jurispr. (1879), II. 737. In the Kantian language subjective existences are either parcel of the understanding, or ideas which the understanding knows by itself alone.
1838. [F. Haywood], trans. Kant’s Crit. Pure Reason, 651. Without a subjective property, nothing would be present to the being who perceives by intuition.
1864. Bowen, Logic, xiii. 423. It appears to disprove … Kant’s counter assertion that space is wholly subjective.
1877. E. Caird, Philos. Kant, II. iii. 241. Subjective ideas, ideas that have no root in actual experience, but only in the constitution of the faculties of perception.
1882. Encycl. Brit., XIV. 785/1. What is the ground of unity in things known, and in what way does thought unite the detached attributes of things into a subjective whole? Ibid. (1883), XVI. 91/2. The idea of truth or knowledge as that which is at once objective and subjective, as the unity of things with the mind that knows them.
b. Special collocations.
Subjective idealism: see IDEALISM 1. Subjective method: the method of investigation that starts from conceptions and a priori assumptions, from which deductions are made. Subjective selection: the function of selection by or through consciousness.
1867. Lewes, Hist. Philos. (ed. 3), I. Proleg. p. xxxiii. The Subjective Method which moulds realities on its conceptions, endeavouring to discern the order of Things, not by step by step adjustments of the order of ideas to it, but by the anticipatory rush of Thought, the direction of which is determined by Thoughts and not controlled by Objects.
1877, 1887. [see IDEALISM 1].
1886. Encycl. Brit., XX. 73/2. Subjective selection, i.e. … the association of particular movements with particular sensations through the mediation of feeling.
1911. Encycl. Brit. (ed. 11), XIV. 281/1. The doctrine which represents the subject itself and its state and judgments as the single immediate datum of consciousness, and all else … as having a merely problematic existence … is sometimes known as subjective or incomplete idealism.
4. Pertaining or peculiar to an individual subject or his mental operations; depending upon one’s individuality or idiosyncrasy; personal, individual.
a. 1767. T. Boston, Serm. (1850), 77. There is an internal subjective discovery of Christ made in, and unto the soul, that finds him by the Holy Ghost.
1796. Nitsch’s View Kant’s Princ., 195. When any thing determines our will which is founded upon the subjective qualification of the individual, it is merely agreeable, though it may not be bad.
1818. Hallam, Mid. Ages (1872), I. 112. Sismondi never fully learned to judge men according to a subjective standard, that is, their own notions of right and wrong.
1858. O. W. Holmes, Aut. Breakf.-t., xi. The ingenuous reader will understand that this was an internal, personal, private, subjective diorama.
a. 1871. Grote, Eth. Fragm., ii. (1876), 42. This sentiment is … a subjective sentiment—that is, each individual experiences it in a degree and manner peculiar to himself.
b. Art and Literature. Expressing, bringing into prominence, or deriving its materials mainly from, the individuality of the artist or author.
1840. E. FitzGerald, Lett. (1889), I. 56. Enough of what is now generally called the subjective style of writing. Ibid. (1846), 161. The whole subjective scheme (damn the word!) of the poems I did not like.
1853. Abp. Thomson, Laws Th. (ed. 3), 25, note. A subjective tendency in a poet or thinker would be a preponderating inclination to represent the moods and states of his own mind.
1867. Brande & Cox, Dict. Sci., s.v., Rubens and Rembrandt were subjective painters.
1871. B. Taylor, Faust (1875), I. 238. The subjective character of the early scenes in Faust is clearly indicated.
c. Tending to lay stress on one’s own feelings or opinions; given to brooding over one’s mental states; excessively introspective or reflective.
1842. Kingsley, Lett. (1878), I. 88. Some minds are too subjective … they may devote themselves too much to the subject of self and mankind.
1856. R. A. Vaughan, Mystics (1860), I. 207. A comparatively small measure of the subjective excess which we would call mysticism.
1871. Morley, Vauvenargues, in Crit. Misc., Ser. I. (1878), 25. A musing, subjective method of delineation.
d. Existing in the mind only, without anything real to correspond to it; illusory, fanciful.
1869. Haddan, Apost. Succ. Ch. Eng., v. 107. A myth,… all in a moment received as a real history in the actual world, while in truth it had been a merely subjective fancy.
1870. Mozley, Univ. Serm., iii. (1877), 69. This philosophy allows us … to take pleasure in a subjective immortality—which is practically posthumous reputation.
e. Physiol. and Path. Due to internal causes and discoverable by oneself alone: said of sensations, symptoms, etc.
Subjective colors: the complementary colors of after-images arising from looking fixedly at colored objects.
1855. Dunglison, Med. Lex., s.v. Sensation, Subjective sensations, such as originate centrically, or in the encephalon,—as tinnitus aurium.
1860. Tyndall, Glac., 37. This green belonged to the class of subjective colours, or colours produced by contrast…. The eye received the impression of green, but the colour was not external to the eye.
1876. Trans. Clinical Soc., IX. 97. The boomings in the ear and the subjective buzz.
1881. Nature, No. 616. 359. All the combinational tones other than those of mistuned unisons must really arise in the ear itself and be subjective in character.
1899. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., VI. 123. The subjective feelings of the patient must not be overlooked.
† 5. Subjective part (scholastic L. pars subjectiva): a part of which the corresponding whole is predicated. Obs.
1728. Chambers, Cycl., s.v. Part, A Subjective or Potential Part, is the same with a Logical one, viz. that contain’d in some universal Whole, not in Act, but only in Power; as Man and Horse are in Animal; Peter and Paul in Man.
6. Gram. a. Constituting, or having the function of, the subject of a sentence.
1862. E. Adams, Elem. Eng. Lang., § 456. When a subjective sentence is placed after the verb.
b. Having the character of the subject of a sentence as expressing the doer of an action; e.g., subjective genitive.
1864. J. Manning, Inq. Poss. Augment, 19. Subjective or active form (nominative). Ibid., 63. The confounding of subjective with objective genitives.
1873. [see PREPOSITIVELY].
1880. E. A. Abbott, Via Latina, 221. Genitives may be divided into large classes, those in which the Gen. can be readily replaced (i.) by a subject; (ii.) by an Object. The former are called Subjective; the latter, Objective.
7. Of the subjects treated, subject-. rare.
1881. Times, 6 Jan., 11/1. The first addition to the evidence is a subjective index.
8. absol. with the: That which is subjective; rarely sb. a subjective fact or thing.
1817. Coleridge, Biog. Lit., xii. (1907), I. 174. During the act of knowledge itself, the objective and subjective are so instantly united, that we cannot determine to which of the two the priority belongs. Ibid. (1830), in Lit. Rem. (1838), III. 1. The Ipseity…; the relatively subjective, whose attribute is, the Holy One.
1853. Sir W. Hamilton, Discuss., 5, note. Psychology is nothing more than a determination of the Subjective and the Objective, in themselves.
1884. Chr. Comm., 20 March, 536/2. The real sweets of life … belong to the internals and subjectives of existence.
1894. Calderwood, Vocab. Philos., 321. In the wider sense, ‘the subjective’ includes the whole of the self-conscious life.
1897. trans. Fichte’s Sci. Ethics, 88. In cognition, an objective (the thing) is changed into a subjective, a representation.
