The Limitations of Human Achievement

A reading of Samuel Johnson's brief essay on the limitations of human achievement with commentary and discussion of his life and times. 

Introduction: Talent Alone Doesn’t Guarantee Success

• Host: Darren
• Welcome to the Makers Rage Podcast
• Discussion of Samuel Johnson's essay on "The Limits of Human Achievement"
• Emphasis on the theme of self-reproach for lack of application and laziness

Samuel Johnson: A Productive Genius

• Overview of Samuel Johnson's prolific work, particularly the Dictionary of the English Language
• Johnson's view on writing for money and the importance of diligence
• Introduction to 'The Idler,' a periodical similar to 'The Spectator,' and its focus on more elevated topics

The Idler and Literary Choices

• A comparison between 'The Idler' and 'The Spectator' in terms of content
• Johnson's decision to appeal more to the learned than the lettered
• Balancing erudition with accessibility, drawing a parallel with Montaigne's essay form

Dictionary Johnson: A Scholar and Wit

• Johnson's reputation as "Dictionary Johnson" and his contributions to literature
• Reflection on bad reviews and Johnson's dignified response
• The significance of Johnson's biography by James Boswell

Reading: 'The Limitations of Human Achievement'

• Reading of the essay from 'The Idler' (number 88), dated Saturday, December 22, 1759
• Emphasis on the universal expectations of progress during the Royal Society's formation
• Johnson's critique of the gap between promises and actual achievements

Commentary: Johnson's Self-Reproach and Reflection

• Johnson's self-awareness and self-reproach in the latter part of his life
• The impact of health issues, depression, and societal perceptions on Johnson
• Examining the fear of leaving no evidence or memorial behind

Epilogue: Contentment in Smaller Accomplishments

• Contemplation on judging accomplishments and seeking smaller victories
• Reference to the applause at Augustus's death and its significance in Johnson's context
• A reflection on Shakespeare's "All the world's a stage" in relation to Johnson's life

Conclusion: The Wisdom of a Sage

• Closing thoughts on Johnson's wisdom, accomplishments, and the recognition of small victories
• Acknowledgment of Johnson's lasting impact on literature and language

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Transcript

 ’The Limits of Human Achievement’

Talent Alone Doesn’t Guarantee Success

Hello, my name is Darren, and welcome to the Makers Rage Podcast. So, today I wanted to talk about a short essay by Samuel Johnson called The Limitations of Human Achievement. And a short essay it is indeed; it will take me five minutes to read it, and I will be reading it, and then afterwards offer a short commentary in the context of his life on works, focusing specifically on this theme, which crops up again and again in his work, of self-reproach for lack of application, for laziness, for accidie - the kind of mental or spiritual sloth inured in the very soul of a person who spent too many years dabbling in irregular habits. We know this of course because of his essays, through his many conversations with his friend and biographer James Boswell, and through his own biographies, such as that of the poet Richard Savage, whose example illustrates how one can fail not true want of talent or opportunity, but through negligence, drunkenness, and squandering every chance of advancement that happened to come his way. A stark reminder that talent alone is no guarantee of success. And while poverty was certainly a hindrance in beginning, he kept himself poor by not taking advantage of the many breaks he got in life, or of the support of his many notable acquaintances, including Johnson, who willed him to succeed. But as Johnson famously writes at the end of his biography of savage, his example reminds us that "nothing will supply the want of prudence" and that "negligence and irregularity long continued, will make knowledge useless, wit ridiculous, and genius, contemptible." 

Samuel Johnson

Now Johnson, of course, was extremely productive. The Dictionary of the English language published in 1755, was produced almost single handedly, except for some clerical assistance where copyist helped him with the quotations he marked in books to illustrate the definitions he provided. And although he disdained the profession of dictionary making, famously defining the word 'lexicographer' as a "harmless drudge", considering himself first and foremost, perhaps, a man of letters, an essayist, a poet, a fiction writer, he nevertheless poured himself into the work, which he projected would take three years but actually took seven, and for which he was paid 1500 guineas. No mean sum in 1755. And after all, it was Johnson who said "no man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money." Although in his biography of Johnson, Boswell qualifies the statement by saying "numerous instances to refute this will occur to all who are vested in the history of literature." 

The Idler

Now the piece I'll be reading is taken from the Idler, which was a periodical or collection of short essays, modelled after the spectator, which was made famous the previous generation by Addison, Steele, Jonathan Swift, among others. But whereas the Spectator was famous for dealing with everyday quotidian themes in everyday colloquial language, or at least everyday and colloquial for the early 18th century, one can imagine the young Johnson, who had an appetite for the highfalutin, getting bored by these topics and wanting to write about subjects that interested him like literature, philosophy and some of the subjects that would have been tackled 200 years earlier by Michel de Montaigne, who famously invented the essay form. The word itself deriving from 'essayer', to attempt, to try, to give it a whirl, to take a jab at, to give it your best shot. It suggests something occasional, a throw away, something you would read and afterwards use as toilet paper. But of course reading Montaigne, one is struck by his accessibility first, then his humor, then of course his erudition. His essays often interlarded with quotations from all the classics, and yet he never comes across as a pedant or a showoff. The legerity of his diction, his sense of humor, is evinced on every page. And I guess striking that balance is still the test for every essayist. 

The young Johnson must have taught that the spectator perhaps went too far in the read and flushed down the toilet direction. With essays on for example, ghosts, courtship, witchcraft, company in a stagecoach, coffee houses, the cries of London, poor and public whores - not very elevated, but popular, and written by Addison and Steele, two of the great essayist in the English language, which is why there is a Penguin edition of their works, which I'm holding in my hand, and which I highly recommend. As for Johnson, I suppose in choosing to appeal, at least initially, a little more to the learned than the lettered and less to the rabblement, his charitable critics would have noted his brilliance, but chided his self-indulgence. The less charitable might have mocked his literary snobbishness and preciosity. But of course, in characteristic defiance, he opened one of his earlier essays, titled 'The Rambler and His Critics' with this, "that every man should regulate his actions by his own conscience, without any regard to the opinions of the rest of the world, is one of the first precepts of moral prudence." 

‘Dictionary Johnson’

Like the rest of us though, he wasn't completely insensitive to bad reviews, especially when his essays weren't selling well. But once his reputation as a wit and dazzling conversationalist began spreading among the salons and a taverns and literary societies of London, it must have been difficult not to shove this in the faces of those same critics. But I suppose harboring grudges is a waste of energy, and braggadocio beneath a man of such dignity. And this is evident in the last passage of that same essay, where he writes with equanimity and sober defiance. "Had the opinion of my censures been unanimous, it might perhaps have overset my resolution. But since I find them at variance with each other, I can without scruple, neglect them, and endeavor to gain favor of the public by following the direction of my own reason, and indulging the sallies of my own imagination." He was correct, of course. By the time he was contributing to the Idler, he was already dictionary Johnson, one of the most famous scholars in Europe. He had James Boswell following them around, recording his every remark, as if he were Jesus or Socrates, for a biography that would ultimately outstrip the dictionary in fame, reserving for our future benefit and entertainment, snatches of a mind and soul long dead and buried, which still catches us off guard, when we read what he wrote and what he said. And that being said, let's get to this essay. 

Reading

Okay. So this is from the Idler number 88, Saturday, December 22, 1759: 'The Limitations of Human Achievement'. Some editions have the title, 'What Have You Done?', from the epigraph by Pliny the Elder "hodie quid egesti". ("what have you done today?") 

08:32

"When the philosophers of the last age were first congregated into the Royal Society, great expectations were raised of the sudden progress of the useful arts. The time was supposed to be near when engines should turn by a perpetual motion, and health be secured by the universal medicine, when learning should be facilitated by a real character, and commerce extended by ships which could reach their ports in defiance of the tempest. But improvement is naturally slow. The society met and parted without any visible diminution of the miseries of life. The gout and stone were still painful, the ground that was not ploughed brought no harvest, and neither oranges nor grapes would grow upon the hawthorn. At last, those who were disappointed began to be angry, those likewise who hated innovation were glad to gain an opportunity of ridiculing men who had depreciated perhaps with too much arrogance, the knowledge of antiquity. And it appears from some of their earliest apologies that philosophers felt with great sensibility unwelcome importunities of those who are daily asking, 'What have you done?' The truth is that little had been done compared to what fame had been suffered to promise. And the question could only be answered by general apologies and by new hopes, which, when they were frustrated, gave a new occasion to the same vexatious inquiry. The fatal question has disturbed the quiet of many other minds. He that in the latter part of his life too strictly inquires what he has done, can very seldom receive from his own heart such an account as will give him satisfaction. 

We do not indeed so often disappoint others as ourselves. We not only think more highly than others of our own abilities but allow ourselves to form hopes which we never communicate, and please our thoughts with employments which none ever will allot us, with elevations to which we are never expected to rise. And when our days and years have passed away in common business, or common amusements, and we find out last that we have suffered our purposes to sleep till a time of action is passed, we are reproached only by our own reflections. Neither our friends nor our enemies wonder that we live and die like the rest of mankind, that will live without notice and die without memorial. They know not what task we have proposed, and therefore cannot discern whether it is finished. He that compares what he has done with what he has left undone, will feel the effect which must always follow the comparison of imagination with reality. He will look with contempt on his own unimportance and wonder to what purpose he came into the world. He will repine that he shall leave behind him no evidence of his having been, that he has added nothing to the system of life but has glided from youth to age among the crowd, without any effort for distinction. Man is seldom willing to let follow the opinion of his own dignity, or to believe that he does little only because every individual is a very little being. 

He is better content to want diligence than power, and sooner confesses the depravity of his will, than the imbecility of his nature. From this mistaken notion of human greatness, it proceeds that many who pretend to have made great advances in wisdom, so loudly declare that they despised themselves. If I had ever found any of the self-contemnors much irritated or pained by the consciousness of their meanness, I should have given them consolation by observing that a little more than nothing, is as much as can be expected from a being who with respect the multitudes about him is himself little more than nothing. Every man is obliged by the supreme master of the universe to improve all the opportunities of good which are afforded him, and to keep in continual activities such abilities as are bestowed upon him. But he has no reason to rapine, though his abilities are small in his opportunities few. He that has improved the virtue, or advanced the happiness of one fellow creature, he that has ascertained a single moral proposition, or added one useful experiment to natural knowledge, may be contented with his own performance, and with respect to mortals, like himself, may demand like Augustus to be dismissed at his departure with applause."

Commentary

So, there it is. I said it will be short. In this Oxford World Classics edition, it's less than two pages. It's not the greatest essay he's written, but like most of his essays can be read in one sitting. And in this particular case, can be read before the seat is even warm, which is a good thing, because if its purpose is to serve as a "spur to prick the sides of our intent", to quote Macbeth, to remind us that life is short and opportunities few, the reading should feel like a spur, and not a sermon. Anyway, he begins by alluding to the great expectations that were raised by the sudden progress of the useful arts. By useful arts, of course, he doesn't mean sculpture or painting or poetry. He means the steam engine, he means Harrison's chronometer, which solved the problem of longitude. He means the East India Company and global commerce, the reflecting telescope, developed by Newton not long before. He means the use of recent developments in maths and natural philosophy to predict eclipses and the passage of comets. Or another recent invention, the microscope, to observe animalcules, creatures invisible to the naked eye, which no human being before the seventeenth century, knew even existed, because this was the start of the Industrial Revolution. And while we're often frustrated by how slowly these things seem to progress in the course of a single human lifetime, in times of revolution, they appear to pick up pace, especially while we're young. Before disenchantment sets in. 

The fact is that great rebirths and ages of reason, rarely affect the common man or woman. They may promise much in the beginning. But at the end of the day, that gout is still painful, and a common cold, still prevalent. And as we grow old, we resent the early optimism we had and pour ridicule upon the young among us who exhibit the same tendencies. And before we know it, we've transformed is the very opposite of what we were, becoming among those who hate innovation, who are glad to gain an opportunity of ridiculing those who depreciated perhaps with too much arrogance, the knowledge of antiquity. The young are cursed to hope, the old to regret. Johnson then deftly moves from the universal to the particular, and this is where, you know, he's speaking about himself, and of that self-reproach I alluded to earlier. He says, "he, that in the latter part of his life too strictly inquires what he has done, will very seldom receive from his own heart such an account as will give him the satisfaction. Johnson had just turned 51 when he wrote this, not so old if you're 40, not so young of your 30 and positively ancient if you're 20. He will go on to live another 25 years, but he was often afflicted with poor health, with depression, and he wasn't the most prepossessing of people. His enemies would have taken relish to remark upon his obesity as lazy eye, his awkward tic, which may or may not have been Tourette's. It seems remarkable that such a man would enrapture a whole room once he began speaking or would head a club that included such enlightenment luminaries as Joshua Reynolds, Edmund Burke, Oliver Goldsmith, among others. Nevertheless, having just turned 51, the majority of his life likely behind him, the best years of his life, most certainly, he thought that perhaps there was only decline and senility to look forward to. 

Epilogue

What would we and centuries to come, judge of his accomplishments? Would we say he lived without notice, died without memorial? Would we say he left behind him no evidence of his having been? Remember, he was already Dr. Johnson dictionary Johnson by this time, and he was buried in the Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey. So, his contemporaries would have demurred at the suggestion. Still, the fear preoccupied him, and especially when the megrims struck, the depression that so often afflicted him and reduced his productivity to nil. And as each day passed, with nothing written, nothing read, the reproaches grew louder, if not from himself then from the Supreme Master of the Universe, whoever that is - not a character in He-Man. But the God of the deists, the first cause, the prime mover, whose injunction that we should keep in continual activity such abilities as are bestowed upon us be taken not just as an imperative, but as a law of nature. 

Perhaps we should learn to be content with smaller accomplishments. Old men don't like revolutions. Maybe the small victories will, taken in the aggregate, be regarded by those who surround our deathbed, as worthy of applause. The reference to Augustus being applauded as he died, taken from the Roman historian Suetonius, can seem to us melodramatic, even histrionic, to treat any politician thus, especially in a 21st century. But in Johnson's day, Augustus's his life was exemplary. Gibbons decline of fall of the Roman Empire only reinforced this. And the idea that one can be applauded out of life as if exiting a stage, makes me think Shakespeare was aware of the same anecdote, the same reference in Suetonius when he famously wrote, "All the world's a stage, and the men and women merely players, they have their exits and their entrances and one man in his time plays many parts." And if his acts are seven ages, then I suppose Johnson would have regarded himself as being like the justice "in fair round belly with good capon lined, with eyes severe and a beard of formal court, (although we never had a beard), full of wise saws and modern instances. And so he plays his part." Full of wise saws indeed.