1752 R. Heathcote Cursory Animadversions Controv. Miraculous Powers 23 That spirit of systematizing, which makes makes every thing necessary or otherwise, for no other reason, but that they are previously disposed to think it so.

1828 W. Sewell Oxf. Prize Ess. 18 That mad fondness for systematizing..which overthrows all the creations of nature.

1837 W. Whewell Hist. Inductive Sci. I. i. ii. 42 The treatises on the various subjects of Natural History..manifest a wonderful power of systematising.

1871 T. M. Lindsay tr. F. Ueberweg Syst. Logic Introd. 39 This striving after a scientific rational insight, when it first came into power, busied itself with a formal systematising of the given contents of the doctrines of faith and of the sciences.

1908 M. L. Severy Gillette's Industr. Solution iii. xlix. 563 The specialising and systematising of activities will lift an immense burden from the backs of the people.

1970 P. J. De Grouchy Classic to Computer ii. 15 During the whole of the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the systematising of the laws of art had gone on, preparing the ground for the full Neoclassic outburst of the mid-eighteenth century.

2004 Times Lit. Suppl. 3 Dec. 13/3 James Joyce..is admired for a delight in systematizing that is far removed from the English liberal sensibility.

1792 D. Stewart Elem. Philos. Human Mind I. 459 Men of a systematizing turn are not now so useless as formerly.

1794 S. T. Coleridge Let. 4 Mar. (1956) I. 71 My Memory tenacious & systematizing would enable [me] to write an Octavo from his Conversation.

1827 R. Southey in Q. Rev. Oct. 312 A cool, crafty, calculating, systematizing knave.

1883 A. H. Sayce in Contemp. Rev. Sept. 391 The later age of systematizing philosophy.

1926 Rotarian Apr. 64/1 (advt.) It takes a broad systematizing experience to develop time-saving, efficient methods of keeping costs.

2010 New Scientist 4 Sept. 42/5 The empathising/systematising theory proposed by psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen.