| 单词 | the fitness of things |
| 释义 | > as lemmasthe (eternal) fitness of things b. the (eternal) fitness of things: a phrase extensively used in the 18th cent. with reference to the ethical theory of Clarke, in which the quality of moral rightness is defined as consisting in a ‘fitness’ to the relations inherent in the nature of things. Hence popularly used (at first with playful allusion) for: What is fitting or appropriate.Clarke's own usual phrase is ‘the eternal reason of things’; but the words fit and fitness are constantly used by him as synonyms of ‘reasonable’ and ‘reason’. ΘΚΠ society > morality > dueness or propriety > [noun] > what is fitting fitment1609 the (eternal) fitness of things1706 1706 S. Clarke Disc. Nat. Relig. 52 They [the Hobbists] have no way to show how Compacts themselves come to be obligatory, but by inconsistently owning an eternal original Fitness in the thing it self. 1730 M. Tindall Christianity old as Creation 357 His [God's] Commands are to be measured by the antecedent Fitness of Things. 1749 H. Fielding Tom Jones II. iv. iv. 20 The Rule of Right, and the Eternal Fitness of Things . View more context for this quotation 1749 Lady Luxborough Let. 29 Nov. in Lett. to W. Shenstone (1775) 148 My writing a Postcript after so long a letter is not according to the fitness of things... [Note] Be it known, these words thus applied are fashionable. 1885 Manch. Examiner 15 Sept. 4/7 Mr. Slagg..showed a characteristic sense of the fitness of things by confining his attention [etc.]. < as lemmas |
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