v. [ad. mod.L. subsūmĕre, f. sub- SUB- 2, 25 b + sūmĕre to take.]
† 1. trans. To bring (a statement, instance, etc.) under another; to subjoin, add. Obs.
1535. Stewart, Cron. Scot., III. 183. Neir be this tyme that ȝe heir me subsume. Ibid., 443. The ȝeir of God ane thousand and thre hunder And nyntie als syne for to subsume wnder.
a. 1660. Hammond, Serm., viii. Wks. 1684, IV. 614. St. Paul … cannot name that word, sinners, but must straight subsume in a parenthesis, of whom I am the chief.
2. intr. (Logic.) To state a minor premiss: freq. with the words of the proposition following.
1589. R. Bruce, Serm., 1 Cor. xi. 28 (1843), 110. There is not a law that ever was … devised, but of all the laws that ever was made, it is leisome to us to have a care of our health. Now, subsume; but the health of thy saull stands in the health of thy conscience…; therefore, be all laws, thou aught to attend to thy conscience.
1634. F. White, Repl. Fisher, 323. Now then I subsume, no religious worship … is due to Saints…. Inuocation of Saints is religious worship…. Ergo, Inuocation is not due to Saints.
1644. Digby, Nat. Soul, ii. § 6. 371. If any body … take this proposition rigorously and peremptorily, that what wise men affirme is true; and should there vpon subsume with evidence, that wise men say such a particular thing [etc.].
1670. Comenius’ Janua Ling., 156. The Major proposeth the basis or ground of the reasoning thus;… the Minor subsumeth,… the conclusion follows.
1733. W. Crawford, Infidelity (1744), 84. God … may unmake again what he has already made…. But then I add, much more may he … annihilate an Offender…. But I further subsume, if God can eternally annihilate even an innocent Being, he may do more eternally to the Guilty.
b. spec. in Sc. Law (see SUBSUMPTION 1 b).
1745. [H. Home], Ess. upon Several Subj., iii. (1747), Suppl. Note. An Act of the 7th Parliament,… bearing That the Lands of Doun, &c. were feued by Queen Mary to Sir James Stewart … subsuming, that the said Sir James being descended of the Royal Blood [etc.].
1747. in Nairne Peerage Evid. (1874), 148. Subsumeing that for the said James Fothringhame pursuer his greater security … they bound and obliged them … to warernd free relieve harmless and skaithless keep the said James Fothringhame.
3. trans. (Logic.) To state as a minor proposition or concept under another.
1697. J. Sergeant, Solid Philos., 427. It will not follow, from the Equal Application of it, by the respective Minors, to this or that Particular, Subsum’d under them, that the Assent to the two Conclusions,… will be Equal.
1828. De Quincey, Rhet., Wks. 1859, XI. 42. To judge, that is to subsume one proposition under another.
1838. [F. Haywood], trans. Kant’s Crit. Pure Reason, 271. In every syllogism I first think a rule (major), by means of the understanding. Secondly, I subsume a cognition under the condition of the rule (minor), by means of the faculty of judgment.
1864. Bowen, Logic, x. 319. Isolated cognitions … are not entitled to be called Sciences, until they are arranged in some Class, or subsumed under some comprehensive Law.
1876. W. Fleming, Vocab. Philos. (ed. 3), s.v. Subsumption, In the judgment, ‘all horses are animals,’ the conception ‘horses’ is subsumed under that of ‘animals.’
1887. J. Adam, Platonis Apol. Socr., Introd. p. xvi. No sooner has it [sc. induction] been attained than we ought (as in the practical syllogism) to subsume under it the special case.
4. To bring (one idea, principle, term, etc.) under another, (a case, instance) under a rule; to take up into, or include in, something larger or higher.
(a) 1825. Coleridge, Aids Refl. (1848), I. 177. Under some one or other of these forms, the resemblances and differences must be subsumed in order to be conceivable.
1846. De Quincey, Christ. Org. Pol. Movem., Wks. 1859, XII. 279. In subsuming the given case proposed under the Scriptural principle.
1877. E. Caird, Philos. Kant, I. 138. To subsume the complexities of knowledge under its simplest principles.
1884. trans. Lotze’s Logic, 247. We must know beforehand that μ and ν can be subsumed under the species m and n of which the equation has been proved to be true.
1885. Pater, Marius, xv. A principle under which one might subsume men’s most strenuous efforts after righteousness.
1887. W. T. Martin, Evol. Hypoth., 42. A law may be subsumed under a higher law.
1899. Mackail, Morris, II. 197. Every form of decorative art could be subsumed under the single head of architecture.
1910. Edin. Rev., April, 461. Perhaps the wider term Aegean will come into general use; under it Minoan and Mycenaean may be subsumed to describe successive stages in Mediterranean developement.
(b) 1812. Coleridge, Friend (1818), III. 255. Man in his idea, and as subsumed in the divine humanity, in whom alone God loved the world.
1871. Mivart, Gen. Spec., 23. ‘Natural Selection’ itself must be capable of being subsumed into some higher law.
1890. A. Moore, Ess. Mental Evol., 58. The child subsumes in its intellectual life the processes of the lower animals, but it rises above them.
1906. Saintsbury, Hist. Engl. Prosody, I. 288. The literature of the fifteenth century, with that first quarter of the sixteenth which is by pretty common consent to be subsumed in it for Southern England.
(c) 1869. J. Austin’s Jurispr. (ed. 3), I. 506. I must correctly subsume the specific case as falling within the law.
1871. Huxley, Wks. (1893), II. 182. These forces … operate according to definite laws … in accordance with some general law which subsumes them all.
1882. Stevenson, Men & Bks., 107. His [Whitman’s] cosmology must subsume all cosmologies, and the feelings that gave birth to them.
1906. Hibbert Jrnl., April, 553. [Idealism] has shown how Spirit subsumes the world as its own.
b. absol.
1896. Fortn. Rev., July, 146. Why continue to subsume when the only result will be to produce a formula which … may utterly fail?
† 5. gen. To assume; to infer, Obs.
1643. Hammond, Serm., vii. Wks. 1684, IV. 511. A Piece of the Philosopher there hath … had a great stroke in debauching the Divine, that the Understanding doth necessarily and irresistibly move the Will … from whence the Divine subsumes, that when Faith is once entered … these Works must … follow.
1678. Hist. Indulgence, To Chr. Rdrs. 5. They must give me leave to assert and subsume … That … I beleeve the Right that Christ hath bought, to be sole and supreme.
1694. S. Johnson, Notes Past. Lett. Bp. Burnet, I. 13. His Axiom or Postulatum is in the first Sentence, which I will allow … at present…. But what he subsumes in the next Sentence is begging the Question.
† 6. To resume, summarize. Obs.
a. 1677. Barrow, Serm., Wks. 1687, I. 123. The Apostle, after the proposing divers enforcements of this duty, subsumeth in the 8. verse, I will therefore, that men pray every-where [etc.].
1678. R. Barclay, Apol. Quakers, ii. § 4. 26. The Proposition … comprehendeth divers unquestionable Arguments, which I shall in brief subsume. Ibid., iii. § 2. 72. The Sum whereof I shall subsume in one Argument.
Hence Subsuming vbl. sb.
1652. Urquhart, Jewel, 277. The pregnancy of the State, whose intuitive spirits can at the first hearing discerne the strength of manifold conclusions (without the labour of subsuming) in the very bowels and chaos of their principles.
1897. trans. Fichte’s Sci. Ethics, 116. In the first mode of proceeding, our judgment is what Kant calls subsuming, and in the latter work, what he calls reflecting.
