[Irreg. f. VOLUNTAR-Y a. + -ISM. Cf. VOLUNTARYISM.]
1. = VOLUNTARYISM 1.
1837. Brighton Patriot, 28 Feb., 2/4. This Scotchman said the ‘question was whether the Protestant Church was to be trusted to the NURSES of voluntarism or supported by the law.’
1838. G. S. Faber, Inquiry, 586. Here … we behold, painted to life, the genuine workings of coarse tyrannical Voluntarism!
2. Philos. One or other theory or doctrine that regards will as the fundamental principle or dominant factor in the individual or in the universe.
1896. Advance (Chicago), 3 Sept. This voluntarism [of Alf. Weber] differs essentially from that of Schopenhauer, according to whom will strives for being and nothing else.
1902. Case, in Encycl. Brit. (ed. 10), XXX. 671/2. On the whole, his [Wundt’s] voluntarism, though like that of Schopenhauer and Hartmann, is not the same.
