a. Now rare or Obs. [f. late L. systēmaticus: see prec. and -ICAL.]
1. Of a writing or treatise: Containing or setting forth a system or regular exposition of some subject. Of a subject or study: Set forth, or pursued, in the way of a system or regular scheme. Of a writer: Dealing with a subject in this way; cf. 4.
1661. Boyle, Style Script., 111. Such Precepts … are not Express’d and Rang’d in the Bible, as they are wont to be in Systematical Composures.
1698. Norris, Pract. Disc. (1707), IV. 239. But ’tis New Philosophy, and … he likes the company of his Systematical Divines better.
1767. Blackburne (title), The Confessional: or, A Full and Free … Inquiry into the Right … Of Establishing Systematical Confessions of Faith and Doctrine in Protestant Churches.
1781. De Lolme, Const. Eng., Advt. (1817), p. vi. The book … met … with approbation,… which … was no small luck for a book on systematical politics.
1782. Priestley, Corrupt. Chr., I. I. ix. 124. Anselm, though he writes with wonderful acuteness, is not systematical.
b. Belonging to, or dealing in, a ‘system’ or theory; theoretical: cf. SYSTEM 8 c.
1748. Chesterf., Lett. to Son, 25 March. They are not the laboured reflections of a systematical closet politician, who, without the least experience of business, sits at home and writes maxims.
1794. R. J. Sulivan, View Nat., I. 57. Too much pertinacity in the support of systematical conjecture.
2. gen. = prec. 3.
1692. Bentley, Boyle Lect., vii. (1693), 7. A brief account of some of the most principal and systematical Phænomena.
1749. Hartley, Observ. Man, I. Pref. Adding such things as were necessary to make the Whole appear more complete and systematical.
1763. J. Brown, Poetry & Mus., v. 68. Their [sc. the ancients’] Divisions of the Musical Art are precise and systematical.
1804–8. Foster, Life & Corr. (1846), I. 283. A plan of systematical reading.
1820. Scoresby, Acc. Arctic Reg., II. 214. The systematical movements of the whales.
1853. Ruskin, Stones Venice, II. viii. § 51. 320. To arrange their ideas in systematical groups.
b. = prec. 3 b.
1750. Miss Talbot, in Eliz. Carter’s Lett., 26 Nov. (1809), I. 364. Some books of French, Morale Mondaine,… full of a systematical profligateness, veiled with delicacy of expression.
1755. Monitor, No. 10. I. 77. The grand systematical corrupter.
1783. Burke, Rep. Aff. India, Wks. 1842, II. 81. In systematical contradiction to the company’s orders.
1816. F. H. Naylor, Hist. Germany, I. I. viii. 290. The Jesuits, those systematical foes to every liberal sentiment.
† 3. Belonging to the system of the universe, or to the solar system; cosmical. Obs.
1688. Boyle, Final Causes Nat. Things, i. 8. These Ends, may,… be call’d Cosmical or Systematical, as regarding the Symmetry of the great System of the world.
1781. Herschel, in Phil. Trans. (1782), LXXII. 104. This new kind of systematical parallax, if I may be allowed to use that expression, for signifying the change arising from the motion of the whole solar system. Ibid. (1797), in Encycl. Brit., II. 480/2. The greatest … systematical parallax of the fixed stars will fall upon those that are in the line … at rectangles to the direction … of the sun’s motion.
4. Nat. Hist. = prec. 4. Now rare or Obs.
1813. Sir H. Davy, Agric. Chem., iii. (1814), 118. Some distinctions have been adopted by systematical authors which I have not entered into.
1817. Kirby & Sp., Entomol., xvii. (1818), II. 48. Gould … though no systematical naturalist, was a man of sense and observation.
1829. T. Castle, Introd. Bot., 2. That part of the science, which refers to … the classification of plants … is denominated systematical botany.
Hence Systematicality, the quality of being systematic.
1852. British Controversialist, III. 3. Scientific systematicality is the sworn foe of ambiguous, incongruous, and mystically oracular phraseology, [etc.].
1872. H. Nicol, in Westm. Rev., XLI. 45. The symbols of foreign [sounds] will, from the systematicality of the alphabet, in most cases explain themselves.
