self-subˈsistence
[self- 5 b.]
The quality or condition of subsisting alone without dependence on or support of anything external.
| 1629 Donne Serm. xxiv. (1640) 240 We banish all self-subsistence, all attributing of any power, to any faculty of our own. 1677 Gale Crt. Gentiles iv. 339 This Independence and Self-subsistence of the Divine Wil. 1701 Norris Ideal World i. vi. 333 Whence has it [Truth] this self-subsistance and independency of being? 1853 J. Martineau Ess. (1869) II. 268 The belief..that causality..has an absolute self-subsistence. 1904 Edin. Rev. Jan. 172 It is the height of absurdity for an advocate of self-subsistence to measure prosperity by the export trade. |
So
self-subˈsistency;
self-subˈsistent a.,
-subˈsisting ppl. a.| 1657 Heylin Ecclesia Vind. i. ii. §2. 55, I look upon the Musarabick Liturgie..for as unquestionable a character of *self-subsistency as the Ambrosian Office was in the Church of Millain. 1825 Coleridge Aids Refl. (1848) I. 325 The attribute of self-subsistency vanishes from the soul on the same grounds, on which it is refused to the mind. 1844 Emerson Ess. Ser. ii. vii. (1876) 173 ‘Lynch-law’ prevails only where there is greater hardihood and self-subsistency in the leaders. |
| 1647 H. More Song of Soul ii. App. Pref. 1 Any actuall and *self-subsistent Being. 1704 Norris Ideal World ii. iii. 250 Those sensible qualities..such as heat, cold, sweetness.. are not self-subsistent beings. 1827 Coleridge Const. Church & State, etc. (1839) 269 note, The self-subsistent Reason or Logos. |
| a 1676 Hale Prim. Orig. Man. iv. iv. 321 Their Souls are not of a *self-subsisting nature, they cannot exist out of them. 1837 Whewell Hist. Induct. Sci. I. 61 Those [Platonic] ideas were described as eternal and self-subsisting, forming an ‘intelligible world’, full of the models or archetypes of created things. |