| 释义 |
perfectibility|pəfɛktɪˈbɪlɪtɪ|
Also perfectability.
[f. next: cf. F. perfectibilité (1771 in Hatz.-Darm.).]
1. Capability of being perfected or becoming perfect; the quality of being improvable to perfection; spec. the capacity of man, individual and social, to progress indefinitely towards physical, mental, and moral perfection; the doctrine of this capacity.
1794Mathias Purs. Lit. (1798) 210 A most affectionate..regard for the welfare of mankind, who are to exist some centuries hence, when the endless perfectibility of the human species (for such is their jargon) shall receive its completion upon earth. 1809European Mag. LV. 18 A man who understood (to use an expression of the new school) the perfectibility of which our language was capable. 1882–3Schaff's Encycl. Relig. Knowl. II. 1038/1 ‘The religion of humanity’, whose fundamental dogma is the spontaneous perfectibility of the human race without any human aid. 1970Sci. Jrnl. Apr. 4/1 The US places more reliance on technological solutions and has more faith in human perfectability than any other nation today. 1975Christian II. 229 The potential for perfectability.
2. loosely. A state of perfection or improvement; concr. A person who has attained to this. rare.
1809W. Irving Knickerb. i. v. (1861) 29 Let us suppose..that the inhabitants of the moon..had arrived at..such an enviable state of perfectibility, as to control the elements. 1815W. H. Ireland Scribbleomania Pref. 6, I do not..arrogate to myself perfectibility in a literary sense. 1828P. Cunningham N.S. Wales (ed. 3) II. 271 There was a ‘Margaret’ also in the female convict-ship..who had attained to such religious and moral perfectibility, that [etc.]. 1872Lever Ld. Kilgobbin lxxiv, We live amidst human perfectabilities—all of Irish manufacture.
Hence perˌfectibiliˈtarian, an upholder or advocate of human perfectibility, a perfectibilist.
1873Morley Rousseau II. 118 The intense exaltation of spirit produced both by the perfectibilitarians and the followers of Rousseau. |