1728 E. Chambers Cycl. at Abstraction We shall only add, that abstracting, on the common System, is no more than generalizing.

1784 F. O'Gallagher Ess. First Princ. Nature: Pt. I i. 47 We must therefore set limits to the property of inertness, which the present generalizing method of philosophizing has rendered universal.

1827 W. Scott Jrnl. 24 July (1941) 81 [He] has a turn for generalising, which renders him rather dull.

1861 Q. Rev. 110 393 Trace that belief..to a separate principle in the human mind; call it the generalizing principle or the inductive principle.

1869 J. D. Baldwin in Preh. Nations (1877) ii. 54 Let it not be inspired entirely by the generalizings of physical speculation.

1885 Athenæum 3 Jan. 22/3 The generalizing habit of Sir Joshua's mind..deprived him at the same time of not a little insight and penetration.

1929 Amer. Jrnl. Sociol. 34 1206 This book carries the ‘case-book’ method into a field hitherto much dominated by ‘introspective’ philosophizings and generalizings.

1985 Globe & Mail (Toronto) (Nexis) 12 Dec. In one study for the Thom Commission, Professor William Stanbury quoted St. Thomas Aquinas on the perils of generalizing.

2005 B. D. Forbes & J. H. Mahan Relig. & Pop. Culture in Amer. (rev. ed.) 170 Star Trek takes on many elements of ‘civil religion’: a generalizing of religious belief necessary for an integrated society.

1789 G.-H. de Riquetti Secret Hist. Court of Berlin 386 Your generalizing mind will take confidence in the industry of the honest man.

1793 T. Beddoes Observ. Nature Demonstrative Evid. 153 A man need not possess a very observant eye, nor a very generalizing mind, to notice a few out of a multitude of facts..and to suspect some connection between them.

1820 W. Scoresby Acct. Arctic Regions I. 347 By continuing to register their observations..they will confer an important obligation on the generalizing meteorologist.

1822 T. Moore Mem. (1853) III. 346 Nothing, certainly, profound or generalizing, or grand or electric.

1882 V. Lee in Contemp. Rev. 42 847 To these purely personal explanations have gradually been added others more suited to the generalizing temper of our days.

1953 Times 4 Aug. 8/3 The botanists..remained indifferent to the grand and generalizing style of the history painters.

1977 H. Sarles After Metaphysics 142 We could think of the infant as a ‘generalizing machine’—one which tends to generalize on most observations, and one which proceeds from the general to the specific.

1999 N.Y. Rev. Bks. 18 Mar. 42/2 Johnson is both grandly generalizing sage and ‘proletarianized’ hack.