[-NESS.] The state or quality of being successive.
a. 1676. Hale, Prim. Orig. Man., I. vi. (1677), 119. The Image whereby it [sc. the Understanding] conceives it, is partly by the successiveness of its own operations.
1829. Mill, Hum. Mind, xiv. § 2. II. 68. The process of having two ideas in succession, in which process the being sensible of the successiveness is part.
1851. Ruskin, Stones Venice, I. xxvii. § 18. They are all conventionalised into a monotonous successiveness of nothing.
1878. Bartley, trans. Topinard’s Anthrop., Introd. 19. Nature does not make sudden jumps. There is a successiveness observable throughout.
So Successivity.
1866. Examiner, 3 Feb., 70/1. An absolute Being, whose nature … precludes … all successivity and change.
