From the book
Centuries of Meditations
Thomas Traherne · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordSkill is practical or informed competence.
- In TraherneTraherne’s comparison makes worldly expertise a rebuke to spiritual negligence.
- In this editionThe attested form is skilled; the abstract headword gathers its sense.
- A place to beginExpertise in trades exposes the inconsistency of neglecting the study of happiness.
Meaning
Skill is practical or informed competence. The relevant passage uses skilled of the detailed knowledge people readily acquire in ordinary trades.
Use in the book
Traherne’s comparison makes worldly expertise a rebuke to spiritual negligence. People devote time to clothes, land, and money, then regard sustained study of God and happiness as excessive. The charge is unequal diligence, not an assertion that practical ability is itself corrupt.
His imagined mine of gold gives the argument a concrete edge: readers who would willingly dig for wealth should not dismiss the labour required for wisdom. Skill thus enters as evidence that disciplined learning is already familiar to them. Their difficulty is choosing an end worthy of the effort they know how to make.
Places to read
- IV.7Expertise in trades exposes the inconsistency of neglecting the study of happiness.
In this edition
The attested form is skilled; the abstract headword gathers its sense. This is a minor lexical entry, not a claim that Traherne offers a separate theory of professional expertise.
Source note
Primary text: IV.7. No 2026 editorial notes used.