[a. F. transformisme (Broca, Congrès d’anthropol., 1867, p. 401), f. transformer to TRANSFORM: see -ISM.]
1. Biol. The hypothesis that existing species are the product of the gradual transformation of other forms of living beings (loosely, such transformation itself); any form of the doctrine of evolution of species.
1878. Bartley, trans. Topinard’s Anthrop., III. i. 527. Direct proofs as to transformism are not wanting.
1880. Huxley, Crayfish, vi. 318. We may suppose that crayfishes have resulted from the modification of some other form of living matter; this is what, to borrow a useful word from the French language, is known as … transformism.
1880. Nature, 27 Jan., 307/1. Degraded plants, affording remarkable specimens of natural transformism.
1883. Tylor, in Nature, 3 May, 8/2. These processes of development, or evolution, or transformism were long ago recognised to no small extent by ethnologists.
2. The doctrine of gradual evolution of moral and social relations: loosely, such evolution itself.
1885. Athenæum, 17 Oct., 510/2. The transformist ‘conference’ at Paris last year was an eloquent lecture by M. Ch. Letourneau on the evolution of morals. The concluding remarks are as follows: ‘In that which relates to education, I am sorry to differ entirely from the principal founder of transformism in morals, H. Spencer.’
1894. Liberal, 24 Nov., 51/2. A laboratory in which the process of social transformism is carried on.
