Definition of "antecedently"

The History of Brute and the Brutans setteth forth. Principally and antecedently their persons, & in them sheweth the geneallogy or issue which they had, artes which they studied, actes which they did.

1593, Richard Harvey, Philadelphus‎, London: John Wolfe

[…] it does not at all appear, that all Mixtures must be of Elementary Bodies; but it seems farr more probable, that there are divers sorts of compound Bodies, even in regard of all or some of their Ingredients, consider’d Antecedently to their Mixture.

1661, Robert Boyle, The Sceptical Chymist‎, Part 4, pp. 214-215

[…] nothing is ever present to the mind but perceptions, and […] all ideas are deriv’d from something antecedently present to the mind;

1739, David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature‎, London: John Noon, Volume 1, Part 2, Section 6, p. 123

She had never antecedently regarded this occupation of his as any objection to having him for a husband.

1896, Thomas Hardy, “An Imaginative Woman”, in Wessex Tales‎, New York: Harper, page 4

The case of envy just described is one in which we feel joy or sadness at the sadness or joy of one we antecedently hate.

2008, Michael Della Rocca, chapter 4, in Spinoza, London: Routledge, page 161