From the book
Centuries of Meditations
Thomas Traherne · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordAn object is what thought, sight, desire, or another power is directed toward.
- In TraherneObjects are necessary to the soul’s fulfilment.
- In this editionObject is broader than physical object.
- A place to beginThe beloved object is a person whom love magnifies and makes blessed.
Meaning
An object is what thought, sight, desire, or another power is directed toward. It can be a person, an event, an attribute, or a material thing.
Use in the book
Objects are necessary to the soul’s fulfilment. Capacity without something to know or love remains desolate; things present without love remain ineffective as treasures. Traherne therefore joins the power, its exercise, and its object in an account of enjoyed life.
II.78 gives this relation an optical form. Light discloses an object, but its activity also becomes evident through that object. In the same way the soul learns its own powers by finding them active about what they apprehend. The beloved as object is not thereby depersonalized: II.25 describes divine love creating and magnifying a responsive person. The term identifies the direction of an act rather than ranking its recipient as inert stuff.
Places to read
- II.25The beloved object is a person whom love magnifies and makes blessed.
- II.65Life without objects is empty, while objects without love fail as treasures.
- II.78Objects manifest and exercise the powers through which they are apprehended.
- III.68Different apprehensions of the same objects explain differences of enjoyment.
In this edition
Object is broader than physical object. The older verb objected means set before a power or presented to it, not necessarily disputed.