of his rage--has become a child's book, and has been read with
wonder and delight by generations of innocents."

How far is the tale a parable?

Generations of innocents in like manner have accepted _Robinson
Crusoe_ as a delightful tale about a castaway mariner, a story of
adventure pure and simple, without sub-intention of any kind. But we
know very well that Defoe in writing it intended a parable--a parable
of his own life. In the first place, he distinctly affirms this in
his preface to the _Serious Reflections_ which form Part iii. of his
great story:--

"As the design of everything is said to be first in the
intention, and last in the execution, so I come now to
acknowledge to my reader that the present work is not merely a
product of the two first volumes, but the two first volumes may
rather be called the product of this. The fable is always made
for the moral, not the moral for the fable...."

He goes on to say that whereas "the envious and ill-disposed part of
the world" have accused the story of being feigned, and "all a
romance, formed and embellished by invention to impose upon the
world," he declares this objection to be an invention scandalous in
design, and false in fact, and affirms that the story, "though
allegorical, is also historical"; that it is

"the beautiful representation of a life of unexampled
misfortunes, and of a variety not to be met with in the world,
sincerely adapted to and intended for the common good of mankind,
and _designed at first_, as it is now further applied, to the
most serious use possible. Farther, that there is a man alive,
and well known too, the actions of whose life are the just
subject of these volumes, _and to whom all or most part of the
story most directly alludes_; this may be depended upon, for
truth, and to this I set my name."

He proceeds to assert this in detail of several important passages in
the book, and obviously intends us to infer that the adventures of
Robinson Crusoe of York, Mariner, were throughout and from the
beginning designed as a story in parable of the life and adventures of
Daniel Defoe, Gentleman. "But Defoe may have been lying?" This was
never quite flatly asserted. Even his enemy Gildon admitted an analogy
between the tale of Crusoe and the stormy life of Defoe with its
frequent shipwrecks "more by land than by sea." Gildon admitted this
implicitly in the tit