absolutism|ˈæbsəljuːtɪz(ə)m|[f.absolute a. + -ism; aftermod.Fr.absolutisme.]The practice of, or adherence to, the absolute, in theology, politics, or metaphysics.1.Theol.‘The dogma of God's acting absolutely in the affair of salvation, and not being guided in his willing, or nilling, by any reason.’ Scott Suppl.to Chambers.1753ChambersCycl.Supp.s.v.Absolutism is one of those doctrines charged on the Calvinists, for which the Lutherans refuse all union with them.1775Ash,Absolutism, the doctrine of predestination.2.Pol.The practice of absolute government; despotism; an absolute state. (First used, together with absolutist, byGen.Perronet Thompson.)1830Gen.Thompson Exerc.(1842) I. 295The experiment of trying to have an agent of the foreigner upon the throne, with leave to bring back the old absolutism.1840Ibid.V. 148The old flag of absolutism, which it might be well enough to hoist two centuries ago, but is all too late now.1841SpaldingItaly I. 24Our dislike of absolutism in government..tempts us to overcharge all its evils.1862M. HopkinsHawaii 253The king's power was absolute; and as is usually the case with absolutisms, his chiefs in their separate spheres were smaller despots.1878SeeleyStein II. 231Standing armies ushered in a period of absolutism over the whole Continent.3.=absoluteness; positiveness.1854FaradayLect.onEduc.72/2The mind naturally desires to settle upon one thing or another; to rest upon an affirmative or a negative; and that with a degree of absolutism which is irrational and improper.4.Philos.The philosophy of the Absolute(seeabsolute a. 13, 14, 15, and absolutistn.anda. 2).1878S. H. HodgsonPhilos.Reflection I. 121The same school of objective, or non-Idealist, absolutism.1884W. JamesEss.Radical Empiricism (1912) xii. 279The one fundamental quarrel Empiricism has with Absolutism is over this repudiation by Absolutism of the personal and aesthetic factor in the construction of philosophy.1890―Princ.Psychol.I. x. 353In demanding a more ‘real’ connection than this obvious and verifiable likeness and continuity, Hume seeks ‘the world behind the looking-glass’, and gives a striking example of that Absolutism which is the great disease of philosophic Thought.