1857 W. Fleming Vocab. Philos. 407 Psychism..is the word chosen by Mons. Quesne (Lettres sur le Psychisme..Paris, 1852) to denote the doctrine that there is a fluid, diffused throughout all nature, animating equally all living and organized beings, and that the difference which appears in their actions comes of their particular organization.

1890 E. Hatch Infl. Greek Ideas ix. 246 A survival of the primitive psychism which peopled the whole universe with life and animation.

1925 J. A. Thomson Sci. & Relig. (U.K. ed.) ii. 65 Immanent psychism does not mean more than that there is throughout all creation a metakinetic aspect, the analogue of the mind of man and of all the more effective animals.

1957 C. Brookfield tr. G. Davy in tr. E. Durkheim Professional Ethics & Civic Morals Introd. p. xxx The first stringency of methodology..seemed to entail, along with the condemning of the theories of final cause and animism or psychism, an exclusive criterion of normality.

1871 E. W. Cox Let. to W. Crookes in Q. Jrnl. Sci. July 19 I venture to suggest that the force be termed the Psychic Force; the persons in whom it is manifested in extraordinary power Psychics; and the science relating to it Psychism, as being a branch of Psychology.

1872 ‘G. Eliot’ Let. 4 Mar. (1956) V. 253 Ideas of spirit-intercourse, ‘psychism’ and so on, have come before me in the painful form of the lowest charlatanerie.

1895 Folk-Lore 6 79 Analysed under the dry light of anthropology, its psychism [sc. that of psychical research] is seen to be only the ‘other self’ of barbaric spiritual philosophy ‘writ large’.

1974 Christian 1 322 They want to know more about apparently unusual goings-on, and this interest is not far removed from the curiosity about psychism and the occult.

1990 New Age Jrnl. June 87/1 (advt.) Major, established publisher with books and tapes on astrology, yoga, psychism,..and nature.

1890 in Cent. Dict. Psychism, the character of being psychic or mental.

1962 Times 4 May 9/6 Psychism is, of course, a function of the brain and..when psychism is disturbed the brain function is affected.

1970 G. Ordish tr. R. Chauvin World of Ants vii. 171 Myrmica..is an ant relatively low on the ladder of ant psychism.

1986 J. J. E. Gracia Lat. Amer. Philos. in 20th Cent. 36 This subjective pole is the individual self that, in Romero's view, distinguishes man from the pre-intentional psychism characteristic of animals.