Respect

Use in the book

The extended account distinguishes the happiness of respecting from merely estimating another’s merit. It also describes a goodness toward those who respect us that exact justice alone would not call forth. The recollection of education values the respect pupils had for masters and masters had for themselves, alongside the spectacle and idea of their lives. This is a remembered moral relation, not proof of universal former innocence. The short contrast between contempt making contemptible and respect making respectable compresses the relation further, but leaves its objects unnamed. It should not be forced to decide whether giver or recipient is changed.

Places to read

1. I, p. 206, entry 5, ¶1Respect adds affective goods to an exact appraisal of merit.
2. II, p. 831, entry 6, ¶1Educational respect runs toward masters and within their self-relation.
3. II, p. 836, entry 7, ¶1Respect and contempt are paired with their corresponding qualities.

Translation in this edition

The English translation preserves the tender illusion attributed to respect without relabeling it deceit. The educational passage keeps moral distinct from instructive. The final paired fragments retain their unspecified objects rather than supplying an explicit psychological mechanism.

Deference

French: déférence.

Déférence is divided by relation: toward age, merit and dignity it belongs to duty; toward equals, outsiders and unknown people it belongs to politeness or true civility. The English translation does not identify étrangers with a particular nation. Deference is therefore not exclusively submission to a superior.

Places to read: II, p. 780, entry 3, ¶1.

Use in the book

Reverence accompanies love in prayer to Christ, whose suffering discloses rather than extinguishes majesty. It also extends to human beings: those who understand redemption and the soul’s dignity must honour persons as more precious than the visible world they inherit. Such esteem is meant to transform ordinary relations.

Yet reverence is not automatically wise. In the account of lost childhood perception, the child reverences adult authority and follows a corrupt scale of values. The contrast is instructive. Reverence becomes holy when it answers real excellence; detached from understanding, it can perpetuate custom and error. Traherne therefore asks for awakened judgment as well as humility before what is greater than oneself.

Places to read

1. I.62Reverence joins ardour, humility, and thanksgiving before Christ.
2. II.93Knowledge of God and the human inheritance requires mutual honour.
3. III.7The child’s reverence for adult authority assists the loss of innocent perception.
4. IV.70God wills that the perfected creature of love be reverenced.

In this edition

Reverence need not mean fear or ceremonial deference alone. The childhood passage deliberately shows its susceptibility to a mistaken object, while the devotional passages join it to joy.