apanthropinisation

English

Alternative forms

• apanthropinization

Etymology

Coined by C. Grant B. Allen in 1880 in volume 5 of the quarterly-review journal Mind : Ap- (from Ancient Greek ἀπ- (ap-, “off, away”)) + anthropin(ism) (“human-focused consideration”) + -isation, noun suffix denoting the action of the suffixed verb. See also apanthropy.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /æpænˌθɹəʊpɪnaɪˈzeɪʃən/

Noun

apanthropinisation (uncountable)

1. (rare) The broadening of the ambit of one’s preoccupations and concerns away from a narrow focus on those things most palpably human and most closely pertinent to humanity.
   • 1880, Oct.: Charles Grant Blairfindie Allen [contrib.] and George Croom Robertson (editor) of the Mind Association, Mind, volume 5 (№ 20), page 451 ^〃 (Williams and Norgate) · (also quoted, with scant little alteration, on page 292 of The Academy [№ 18, 1880])

     In short, the primitive human conception of beauty must, I believe, have been purely anthropinistic — must have gathered mainly around the personality of man or woman; and all its subsequent history must be that of an apanthropinisation (I apologise for the ugly but convenient word), a gradual regression or concentric widening of æsthetic feeling around this fixed point which remains to the very last its natural centre.

   • 1881, Jan.: The Popular Science Monthly, volume 18 (1880–1881), page 344 ^〃 (D. Appleton); quoting verbatim, but not literatim, the text of the first occurrence in Mind [1880] hereinbefore (minor adjustments to Americanise the spelling have been made)

     In short, the primitive human conception of beauty must, I believe, have been purely anthropinistic — must have gathered mainly around the personality of man or woman; and all its subsequent history must be that of an apanthropinization (I apologize for the ugly but convenient word), a gradual regression or concentric widening of æsthetic feeling around this fixed point which remains to the very last its natural center.

   • 2005, Mar.: Anne-Julia Zwierlein (editor), Unmapped Countries: Biological Visions in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture, page 114 (Anthem Press; →ISBN, 978‒1843311607)

     From this early, ‘anthropinistic’ stage, at which all aesthetic feeling is ‘gathered mainly around the personality of man or woman’, human aesthetic feeling gradually evolves in a process of apanthropinization, ‘a gradual regression or concentric widening of aesthetic feeling around this fixed point’,⁵⁹ and advances to the appreciation of beauty in nature.⁶⁰