1611. Florio, Inpermutabile, vnalterable.
1656. Bramhall, Replication, 5. The essences of things are unalterable.
1694. F. Bragge, Disc. Parables, xii. 397. Whatever alteration is made in the state … of the soul … shall be from henceforth for ever unalterable.
1729. Pope, Lett. to Swift, 9 Oct. The doctor is unalterable, both in friendship and quadrille.
1794. Hutton, Philos. Light, etc., 286. Space, which is unalterable, and in which bodies are conceived to move.
1815. J. Smith, Panorama Sci. & Art, II. 451. Alone, it [sc. silex] is unalterable by the strongest heat.
1864. Bowen, Logic, xii. 400. What is called physical necessity is nothing but a conviction that the relation of an Efficient Cause to its effect is unalterable.
b. Of resolves, decisions, laws, etc.
1631. Gouge, God’s Arrows, I. § 67. 112. Vow with an unalterable resolution to performe what you vow.
1699. Burnet, 39 Art., xxxiv. 370. No rule made in such matters is to be held unalterable, but may be changed upon occasion.
1779. Mirror, No. 67, 28 Dec., ¶ 10. She doubted not, she said, the sincerity of my intentions; but her resolution was taken; and she repeatedly assured me, that her motives made it unalterable.
1781. Cowper, Conversat., 467. ’Tis an unalterable fix’d decree, That none could frame or ratify but she.
1815. J. Cormack, Abol. Fem. Infanticide Guzerat, x. 195. Not less unalterable did the Jahrejahs of Guzerat pronounce the horrid practice of infanticide.
1890. ‘R. Boldrewood,’ Col. Reformer (1891), 199. I do not see why it should be an unalterable law.
c. Of feelings. (Common in 18th cent.)
1716. Pope, Lett. to Lady Montagu, 18 Aug. With all unalterable esteem and sincerity.
1776. Mickle, trans. Camoens’ Lusiad, Dissert. 160/1. Perceiving the unalterable hatred which the League bore to his religion.
1841. Brewster, Mart. Sci., II. iii. (1856), 133. Tycho received … an assurance of his Majesty’s unalterable attachment.
