[f. prec. + -ISM.]
1. Excessive regard for what is external, to the neglect of what is essential, esp. in religion; an instance of this.
1856. R. A. Vaughan, Mystics (ed. 4), I. VI. ii. 205. The despotic externalism of the time.
1875. Mrs. Charles, in Sunday Mag., May, 506/1. Religious communities, my children, of all kinds are for ever running to seed in Pharisaic formalities and externalisms.
1879. Farrar, St. Paul, II. 265. Christianity might be frittered away into a troublesome and censorious externalism.
2. The worship of the external world.
1874. Blackie, Self-Cult., 11. This is the very madness of externalism.
