Panglossianadj.n.

1831 B. Disraeli Young Duke I. i. iii. 23 He was quite disembarrassed of that Panglossian philosophy, which had hitherto induced him to believe, that the Earl of Fitz-pompey was the best of all possible uncles.

1908 V. Lee Gospels of Anarchy vii. 225 It seems to me that the Panglossian theology..has betrayed Professor James into a statement which is damaging to the fruitful garden of human nature.

1915 Amer. Jrnl. Sociol. 21 317 His facts and his figures are so impressive that the most complacent and Panglossian of publicists will find it impossible to ignore them or dismiss them.

1976 Nature 18 Mar. 196/2 The old Panglossian fallacy that natural selection favours adaptations that are good for the species as a whole, rather than acting at the level of the individual.

2000 N.Y. Rev. Bks. 2 Nov. 57/2 Many searchers for life beyond Earth seem to be possessed of an almost Panglossian optimism.

1922 T. Hardy Late Lyrics & Earlier Apol. p. xi Should anything of this sort in the following adumbrations seem ‘queer’—should any of them seem to good Panglossians to embody strange and disrespectful conceptions of this best of all possible worlds, I apologize; but cannot help it.

1936 G. B. Shaw Simpleton Pref. 3 If author and journalist are both placid Panglossians, convinced that their civilization is the best of all possible civilizations..there is no trouble.

1977 Current Anthropol. 18 707/1 We are no Panglossians; ruin threatens all life, the ‘advantages of scale’ are illusory where ‘small is beautiful’.