SOURCE: "The Hunger of Imagination," in The Achievement of Samuel Johnson, Oxford University Press, 1955, pp. 63-91.

In the following essay, Bate, a leading scholar of the eighteenth century, explores Johnson's view of the mind as a aspect of the human organism that should be constantly stimulated and diverted with intellectual pursuits and conscious reflection.

In Rasselas, the little group, which has been traveling about in search of a fuller understanding of human nature and destiny, is taken by the philosopher, Imlac, to see the pyramids. Neither Rasselas nor his sister is excited by the prospect of the visit. They state, rather pretentiously, that their 'business is with man'—with human manners and customs—not with 'piles of stones' or 'fragments of temples.' Imlac replies that in order to know anything we must also know the products and traces it leaves behind: to understand men, we must see...