[f. prec. + -ISM. Cf. F. transcendantalisme (Littré).]
1. Transcendental philosophy; a system of this; applied to that taught by Kant and other philosophers; also, to the idealism of Schelling.
1803. Edin. Rev., Jan., 265. The theory of transcendentalism may therefore be a better dogmatism than others.
1817. T. L. Peacock, Melincourt, III. 40. He has thus discovered the difference between objective and subjective reality and this point of view is transcendentalism.
1851. Carlyle, Sterling, I. viii. (1872), 46. He was thought to hold … alone in England, the key of German and other Transcendentalisms.
1866. Dk. Argyll, Reign Law, ii. (ed. 4), 117. What is transcendentalism but the tendency to trace up all things to the relation in which they stand to abstract Ideas?
1878. Dowden, Studies in Lit., 58. Transcendentalism, seeking the supernatural everywhere, loses sight of it as such.
b. The religio-philosophical teaching of the New England school of thought represented by Emerson and others: see quot. 1911.
1842. Emerson, Lect., Transcendentalist, Wks. (Bohn), II. 279. What is popularly called Transcendentalism among us, is Idealism.
1876. N. Amer. Rev., CXXIII. 468. Boston and its immediate neighborhood … really made up the kingdom ruled by Transcendentalism.
1887. Cabot, Mem. Emerson, I. vii. 248. The Boston or New England Transcendentalism had, as Dr. Hedge says, no very direct connection with the transcendental philosophy of Germany, the philosophy of Kant and his successors.
1911. Encycl. Brit., XXVII. 172/2. (Transcendentalism) The most famous example of the pseudo-philosophic use of the term is for a movement of thought which was prominent in the New England states from … 1830 to 1850. Its use originated in the Transcendental Club (1830), founded by Emerson, Frederic Henry Hedge, and others. The movement had several aspects: philosophical, theological, social, economic.
2. Exalted character, thought, or language; also, that which is extravagant, vague, or visionary in philosophy or language; idealism.
1831. Carlyle, Sart. Res., I. iii. (1858), 8. If through the high, silent, meditative Transcendentalism of our Friend we detected any practical tendency whatever, it was at most Political.
1837. Thackeray, Carlyle’s Fr. Rev., Wks. 1900, XIII. 249. It teems with sound, hearty philosophy (besides certain transcendentalisms which we do not pretend to understand).
1859. Smiles, Self-Help, xi. (1860), 287. Nor did the lofty transcendentalism of his books by any means palliate the acted meannesses of his life.
1871. W. H. Miller, Cult. Pleasure, Pref. (1872), 10. It is time, indeed, that the whole subject of happiness should be dragged down from the regions of transcendentalism…, and be made, if possible, to take its place in the highways and byeways of every-day life.
3. The quality or character of transcendent excellence; transcendency. rare.
1840. Carlyle, Heroes, iii. (1872), 80. Dante and Shakespeare … dwell apart…. In the general feeling of the world, a certain transcendentalism, a glory as of complete perfection, invests these two.
