From the book
Centuries of Meditations
Thomas Traherne · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Microcosm
image of all His work; comprehensive head; bond of all
Microcosm, or little world, is a conventional name for the conception of humanity as gathering the kinds and powers of the larger creation within itself.
Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordMicrocosm, or little world, is a conventional name for the conception of humanity as gathering the kinds and powers of the larger creation within itself.
- In TraherneIn the sequence translating and discussing Pico della Mirandola, Traherne presents the human being as the image of the whole divine work.
- In this editionThe 2026 note identifies an important change from Pico’s wording: Traherne makes humanity the image of all creation.
- A place to beginMan becomes the image of the whole work, receiving something of the diverse creatures’ endowments.
Meaning
Microcosm, or little world, is a conventional name for the conception of humanity as gathering the kinds and powers of the larger creation within itself. It is an explanatory headword here, not a word used in the cited meditations.
Use in the book
In the sequence translating and discussing Pico della Mirandola, Traherne presents the human being as the image of the whole divine work. After the orders of creatures have received their particular endowments, man receives something of what is distributed among them all. This comprehensiveness helps explain the human vocation to contemplate, admire, and love the universe.
The story is not offered as a literal account of God forgetting humanity until the remaining places were full. IV.79 expressly calls it a little fable and rejects that chronology. Humanity can be last in execution while first in intention, because the intended end guides the ordering of the preceding work. Nor does the adjacent language of becoming beast or angel describe changes of skin or bodily species: IV.78 places the decisive difference in the soul’s inward character and understanding.
Traherne’s final emphasis is therefore on comprehensive capacity, free response, and mediation. The human being is a head and bond of the visible and invisible worlds, capable of receiving their service and choosing union with God. The microcosm concept identifies the gathering of diverse powers; the moral application asks how that breadth will actually be used.
Places to read
In this edition
The 2026 note identifies an important change from Pico’s wording: Traherne makes humanity the image of all creation. Microcosm names that concept without pretending to reproduce his literal vocabulary. The larger borrowing and its limits are treated under Pico della Mirandola.
Source note
Primary text: IV.74–7923456. Supplied 2026 editorial note 321 to IV.75 explains Traherne’s change to Pico and names the microcosm concept.
From the book
The Anatomy of Melancholy
Robert Burton · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Microcosm
Microcosmus; Microcosme; Microcosmographia
Microcosmus and Microcosme name the human being as a little world.
Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordMicrocosmus and Microcosme name the human being as a little world.
- In the Anatomy of MelancholyThe First Partition begins with a sequence of praises: the human being is the world’s abridgment and epitome, a microcosm and its model.
- In this editionAt the passage “this our Microcosmus” becomes “our human microcosm.”
- A place to readinvestigating melancholy across the little world is compared with difficult discoveries in the larger world
Meaning
Microcosmus and Microcosme name the human being as a little world. Burton himself glosses the former as “a little world, a model of the world.” The image can praise humanity’s comprehensiveness, locate melancholy’s effects throughout one constitution, or supply a landscape through which the investigator travels. Microcosmographia is the title of an anatomical work recommended to readers, not another designation for a disease.
Use in the book
The First Partition begins with a sequence of praises: the human being is the world’s abridgment and epitome, a microcosm and its model. The continuation joins this natural dignity to humanity’s original likeness to God and freedom from infirmity, before turning to the Fall and the miseries of the present condition. The little world belongs to this account of excellence and loss. It is not simply a synonym for an already diseased body. A marginal saying distinguishes the body as an image of the world from the soul as an image of God; the broader passage considers the human being in both respects.
The address to the reader has already made the same little world an object of difficult inquiry. To anatomize melancholy throughout all its members is set beside unresolved historical, geographical, mathematical and astronomical tasks. The comparison enlarges the undertaking: exploring a person is comparable in difficulty to exploring the greater world. Burton’s anatomical divisions make that scale manageable, but the image does not certify that every mechanism has been discovered. The recommendation of Crooke’s Microcosmographia in the anatomy digression supplies a related bibliographical route to studying the human frame.
In the account of passions, the image becomes dynamic. Emotional disturbance is the thunderbolt that can rapidly overthrow the microcosm’s healthy condition and temperament. The explanation crosses the division between mind and body in both directions. Bad humours trouble the spirits and send vapours into the brain, disturbing the soul and its faculties; after an intervening quotation, Burton completes the comparison by describing the mind’s powerful effects upon the body. The storm in the little world therefore includes reciprocal action, not only a mental cause producing a bodily symptom.
A later transition turns the microcosm into a forest. Burton has been a Purly hunter, working around its outskirts and pursuing external, adventitious causes. He now enters the inner rooms and lays open the causes within. The changing imagery joins exploration, hunting, a building and dissection rather than presenting a consistent anatomical diagram. The continuation again states reciprocity: disturbance of mind changes bodily temperament, and bodily disturbance disorders the soul. Burton finds it difficult to decide which harms the other more, before reporting rival allocations of principal responsibility. The inward turn of the investigation is consequently a change of explanatory emphasis, not the discovery that the body alone causes all melancholy.
Related entries
Anatomy; Soul; Organical parts; Passion; Complexion and temperament; Cause
Places to read
- Address to the readerinvestigating melancholy across the little world is compared with difficult discoveries in the larger world
- 1.1.1.1the human being as epitome and model of the world, followed by original excellence and its loss
- 1.1.2.1anatomy as self-knowledge and further study; Microcosmographia is named at Section 1. Member 2. Subsection 1. A digression on anatomy · paragraph 24
- 1.2.3.1the thunderbolt of passions and the two directions of bodily and mental influence
- 1.2.5.1the hunter enters the microcosm’s interior; the continuation resists a simple verdict on which side chiefly harms the other
In this edition
At the passage “this our Microcosmus” becomes “our human microcosm.” The explicit original gloss, “a little world, a model of the world,” is preserved. At the passage “this our Microcosme” becomes “our little world, the human being”: the final words explain the metaphor’s referent. “Healthy condition and balance” renders the accompanying phrase “good estate and temperature”; these meanings do not belong to Microcosme alone.
The modern “hunter in the purlieus” explains “Purly hunter.” The supplied note identifies purlieus with land at a forest’s edge. The phrase belongs to Burton’s metaphor for his changing investigative position. The edition’s identifications of the opening authorities and Crooke’s book remain apparatus claims; they have not been turned into a claim of independent collation here.
good estate and temperature
Printed “good estate and temperature” (English; phrase).
Healthy condition and balanced bodily constitution, liable to disturbance.
Context: Passions are said often, not invariably, to overthrow this condition.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: subverts the good estate and temperature of it
Modern rendering, Modern wording: overthrows its healthy condition and balance
Alignment scope: whole predication, not translation of Microcosme
microcosm · Microcosme · local use 1
Printed “Microcosme” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.
The whole human being subject to rapid changes through passions and bodily processes.
Context: Burton’s explanatory comparison; body-to-mind clause completed by mind-to-body clause at 038-32.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: violent and speedy alterations in this our Microcosme
Modern rendering, Modern wording: violent and rapid changes in our little world, the human being
Alignment scope: whole phrase; human being is explanatory expansion
microcosm · Microcosme · local use 2
Printed “Microcosme” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Human constitution imagined as a landscape with outer and inner causal regions.
Context: Burton marks a movement from external to internal causes; subsequent causation remains reciprocal.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: the circuit of the Forrest of this Microcosme
Modern rendering, Modern wording: the outskirts of the forest of this microcosm
Alignment scope: whole spatial construction
microcosmographia
Printed “Microcosmographia” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Title of a recommended thirteen-book anatomical work, identified as Crooke’s in the apparatus.
Context: Burton recommends further study; not an anatomical structure or disease name.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: Microcosmographia, in 13. bookes
Modern rendering, Modern wording: the thirteen books of Microcosmographia
Alignment scope: whole bibliographical phrase
microcosmus · Microcosmus · local use 1
Printed “Microcosmus” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.
The human constitution as a little world whose every part complicates inquiry.
Context: Burton compares investigative difficulty, not actual astronomical identity.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: through all the members of this our Microcosmus
Modern rendering, Modern wording: throughout every part of our human microcosm
Alignment scope: whole phrase; human explicates referent
microcosmus · Microcosmus · local use 2
Printed “Microcosmus” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.
The human being praised as an epitome or miniature of the larger world.
Context: Burton’s opening catalogue of human excellence; continuation relates original perfection and Fall.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: Microcosmus, a little world, a model of the world
Modern rendering, Modern wording: a microcosm, a little world, a model of the world
Alignment scope: whole appositional sequence
purly hunter
Printed “Purly hunter” (English; phrase).
A hunter at the forest’s margins, figuratively the examiner of external causes.
Context: Burton describes his own prior investigative position.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: AS a Purly hunter
Modern rendering, Modern wording: Like a hunter in the purlieus
Alignment scope: whole comparison