[ad. late L. substantiālitas, f. substantiālis SUBSTANTIAL; cf. F. substantialité, It. sostanzialità.]
1. The quality or state of being substantial; existence as a substance or substratum; substantial or real existence.
1545. Bale, Myst. Iniq., 34. Substancialite, deificalite, carnalite corporalite.
1651. [see MAGNESIA 1].
1678. Cudworth, Intell. Syst., I. v. 863. The Grand Objection against this Substantiality of Souls Sensitive, as well as Rational.
1683. Pordage, Mystic Div., 79. This Love’s Eternal Substantiality.
1760–72. H. Brooke, Fool of Qual. (1809), IV. 44. The clothing of our spirits with the heavenly substantiality of the spiritual body and blood of … Jesus himself.
1830. trans. Tenneman’s Man. Hist. Philos., 344. Berkely … maintaining that our senses … do not afford us any proof of the existence or substantiality of their objects.
1863. E. V. Neale, Anal. Th. & Nat., 45. The accidents of a substance while they are effects of its substantiality, determine the character of the substance which causes them.
1877. E. Caird, Philos. Kant, II. x. 419. The ascription of independent substantiality to each of the different phases of intellectual life.
1880. P. Greg, Across Zodiac, I. vii. 167. I had afforded much stronger evidence, if not of my own substantiality, yet of the real existence of a repulsive energy.
attrib. 1897. trans. Fichte’s Sci. Ethics, 120. A mediating link between nature as mere mechanism (or the causality-relation); and freedom as the opposite of mechanism (or the substantiality-relation).
1902. J. M. Baldwin’s Dict. Philos. & Psychol., Substantiality Theory or Substantialism,… the theory that there are real substances, or distinct entities, underlying phenomenal facts or events.
† b. A substantial being or thing. Obs.
1651. Biggs, New Disp., Pref. 8. Real entities and substantialities.
1662. Sparrow, trans. Behmen’s Rem. Wks., 43. This very Substantiality or Corporeity … was Christs heavenly Flesh and Bloud.
2. Soundness, genuineness; solidity of position or status.
1660. R. Burney, Κέρδ. Δῶρον, 19. He that is the Monarch is Ἄριστος, and Aristocraticall men do but creep under his feet, and have better cloathes then substantiality of Rule.
1865. M. Arnold, Ess. Crit., x. (1875), 410. The substantiality, soundness, and precision of Mr. Long’s rendering are … conspicuous.
1876. Geo. Eliot, Dan. Der., xxiii. Whether she could not achieve substantiality for herself and know gratified ambition without bondage.
3. Solidity, firmness (of a structure).
1790. Trans. Soc. Arts, VIII. 112. The substantiality of the new wall.
1879. W. L. Lindsay, Mind in Lover Anim., I. 113. Many of the lower animals build themselves dwellings that excel in substantiality … the huts or hovels of men.
1891. Winn, Boating Man’s Vade-M., 52. A boat of this kind … still survives, and vies in point of substantiality with many of more modern construction.
4. concr. (pl.) = SUBSTANTIAL C 3.
1813. Lamb, Recoll. Christ’s Hosp., Wks. 1818, I. 289. He … partook in all the mirth, and in some of the substantialities of the feasting.
1842. Blackw. Mag., LI. 375. A ham and other substantialities composed our meal.
1842. J. Wilson, Recr. Chr. North, I. 213. If not all the delicacies, at least all the substantialities, of the season.
