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sensualism

1. The condition or character of one who is sensual; subjection to sensual feelings and appetite; sensuality.

2. (Science: philosophy) The doctrine that all our ideas, or the operations of the understanding, not only originate in sensation, but are transformed sensations, copies or relics of sensations; sensationalism; sensism.

3. (Science: ethnology) The regarding of the gratification of the senses as the highest good.

Origin: Cf. F. Sensualisme.