Fitness

[f. FIT a. + -NESS.]

  1.  The quality or state of being fit or suitable; the quality of being fitted, qualified, or competent.

1580.  Baret, Alv., F 604. Ablenesse, fitnesse, handsomnesse, habilitas.

1597.  Hooker, Eccl. Pol., V. vi. (1611), 193. Competent to shew their conueniencie and fitnesse, in regard of the vse for which they should serue.

1601.  Shaks., All’s Well that ends Well, II. ii. 31. Lady. Haue you, I say, an answere of such fitnesse for all questions?

1748.  Hartley, Observations on Man, II. ii. 158. It is upon these principles alone, that we prove the divine power, knowledge, and goodness, from the harmonies, and mutual fitnesses, of visible things, and from final causes, inasmuch as these harmonies and fitnesses are precisely made out only in a few instances, if compared to those in which we see no more than general harmonies, with particular subordinate difficulties, and apparent incongruities.

1783.  Burke, Affairs India, Wks. 1842, II. 11. No proof whatsoever of distinguished capacity in any line preceded his original appointment to the service; so that the whole of his fitness for the supreme council rested upon his conduct and character since his appointment as Persian translator.

1845–6.  Trench, Huls. Lect., Ser. I. iii. 49. Every other man has idiosyncrasies, characteristics—some features, that is, of his character marked more strongly than others, fitnesses for one task rather than for another, more genial powers in one direction than in others.

1875.  Jowett, Plato (ed. 2), IV. 132, Parmenides, Introduction. When we have described accurately the methods or forms which the mind employs, we cannot further criticise them; at least we can only criticise them with reference to their fitness as instruments of thought to express facts.

  b.  The state of being morally fit; worthiness.

1647.  W. Lyford, Transl. Sinner (1648), 3. Not because of our works, or fitnesse, or betternesse of disposition in us.

1745.  Wesley, Answ. Ch., 36. No Fitness is required at the Time of communicating.

1858.  J. Martineau, Stud. Chr., 332. To insist instead on a mere moral fitness, on a character of mind suitable to meet the eye of infinite purity, would be a mockery in a state of society at once decrepit and corrupt.

  2.  The quality or condition of being fit and proper, conformity with what is demanded by the circumstances; propriety.

1597.  Hooker, Eccl. Pol., V. § 7. 13. In things the fitnes whereof is not of it self apparent.

1613.  Shaks., Hen. VIII., II. iv. 231.

1784.  Cowper, Task, V. 672.

1820.  Byron, Let., Wks. 1846, 153/1. Their system has its rules, and its fitnesses, and its decorums, so as to be reduced to a kind of discipline or game at hearts, which admits few deviations, unless you wish to lose it.

  b.  The (eternal) fitness of things: a phrase extensively used in the 18th c. with reference to the ethical theory of Clarke, in which the quality of moral rightness is defined as consisting in a ‘fitness’ to the relations inherent in the nature of things. Hence popularly used (at first with playful allusion) for: What is fitting or appropriate.

  Clarke’s own usual phrase is ‘the eternal reason of things’; but the words fit and fitness are constantly used by him as synonyms of ‘reasonable’ and ‘reason.’

1705.  Clarke, Nat. & Rev. Relig. (1706), 52. They [the Hobbists] have no way to show how Compacts themselves come to be obligatory, but by inconsistently owning an eternal Fitness in the thing itself.

1730.  M. Tindal, Christianity old as Creation, 357. His [God’s] Commands are to be measured by the antecedent Fitness of Things.

1749.  Fielding, Tom Jones, IV. iv. The rule of right, and the eternal fitness of things.

1749.  Lady Luxborough, Lett. to Shenstone, 29 Nov. (1775), 148. My writing a Postcript after so long a letter is not according to the fitness of things…. Note. Be it known, these words thus applied are fashionable.

1885.  Manch. Exam., 15 Sept., 4/7. Mr. Slagg … showed a characteristic sense of the fitness of things by confining his attention [etc.].

  † 3.  The quality of fitting exactly (cf. FIT a. 3); correspondence of size and shape. Obs.

1658.  A. Fox, trans. Wurtz’ Surg., II. xxv. 150. Have a good Knife also about you, in case you have need to cut the splinters to a fitness.

1719.  De Foe, Crusoe (1840), I. xi. 188. If there was any similitude or fitness, that I might be assured it was my own foot.

1793.  Smeaton, Edystone L., § 235. Where there was the least want of fitness … either the stone or the rock was cut, till each stone would come into its exact relative position.

  † 4.  Readiness, inclination. (Cf. FIT a. 5, 5 b.)

1604.  Shaks., Ham., V. ii. 209 (Qo 2). Ham. I am constant to my purposes, they followe the Kings pleasure: if his fitnes speakes, mine is ready.