a.
1. [SUPER- 4 a.] That is above or beyond (the power of) the senses, or higher than what is perceptible by the senses; also, relating to such things as transcend sense; often = spiritual.
In translations and echoes of Goethe’s Faust (Martha’s Carden), ‘supersensual sensual’ renders G. übersinnlicher sinnlicher (Freier).
1683. E. Hooker, Pref. Pordage’s Mystic Div., 60. His most agreeabl and supersensual Companion and Fellow-laborer in the Evangelic-angelic Work. Ibid., 99. A Diaphanous Manifesto and perspicuous Demonstration … ever from supersensual sight and intellectual Vision.
1816. Coleridge, Statesm. Man. (1817), 360. The paramount gentlemen of Europe, held high converse with Spenser on the idea of supersensual beauty.
1833. trans. Goethe’s Faust, 148. Thou super-sensual, sensual lover, a chit of a girl leads thee by the nose.
1841. Myers, Cath. Th., III. § 12. 45. The Rationalist … measuring supersensual objects only by logical and other terrestrial apparatus.
1865. M. Arnold, Ess. Crit., vi. (1875), 248. Supersensual love, having its seat in the soul.
1870. Lowell, Among My Books, Ser. I. (1873), 149. Sensual proof of supersensual things.
1874. Tennyson, Merlin & V., 107. Such a supersensual sensual bond As that gray cricket chirpt of at our hearth.
1885. Stevenson, in Contemp. Rev., April, 550. [The writer’s] pattern, which is to please the supersensual ear, is yet addressed … to the demands of logic.
B. absol. with the.
1858. Lytton, What will He do? VII. xxiii. In our inmost hearts there is a sentiment which links the ideal of beauty with the Supersensual.
1869. Lecky, Europ. Mor., II. iv. 106. [Religion] allures them to the supersensual and the ideal.
2. [SUPER- 9 a.] Extremely sensual. rare.
In quot. 1835 a misunderstanding of Goethe’s übersinnlich (see note on sense 1 and quot. 1833).
1835. R. Talbot, trans. Goethe’s Faust, 200.
| Thou sport of super-sensual desire! | |
| A little Gypsy leads thee by the nose. |
1867. Sir E. B. Lytton, in Lett. Robt. 1st Earl of Lytton (1906), I. ix. 237. The ‘Gyges and Candaules’ have [sic] some dangerous supersensual lines which I advise you to reconsider. It will not do for you to be ‘Swinburnian.’
Hence Supersensualism, supersensual thought or doctrine; Supersensualistic a., of or pertaining to supersensualism; Supersensually adv., in a supersensual manner.
1683. E. Hooker, Pref. Pordage’s Mystic Div., 66. The veri Spirit of thi Mind is elevated, supersensually and superrationally sublimed.
a. 1861. Cunningham, Hist. Theol. (1864), II. xxiii. 191. The neology of Germany combining easily with a sort of mystical supersensualism was fitted to interest the feelings.
1865. Reader, 22 July, 89/3. All merely supersensualistic theories.
1906. Sir O. Lodge in Hibbert Jrnl., Jan., 320. It [sc. Christianity] postulates a supersensually visible and tangible vehicle or mode of manifestation.
