all his clothes before swimming to the wreck? How could he have
been at such a loss for clothes after those he had put off were washed
away by the rising tide, when he had the ship's stores to choose from?
How could he have seen the goat's eyes in the cave when it was pitch
dark? How could the Spaniards give Friday's father an agreement in
writing, when they had neither paper nor ink? How did Friday come to
know so intimately the habits of bears, the bear not being a denizen of
the West Indian islands? On the ground of these and such-like trifles,
one critic declared that the book seems calculated for the mob, and will
not bear the eye of a rational reader, and that "all but the very
canaille are satisfied of the worthlessness of the performance." Defoe,
we may suppose, was not much moved by these strictures, as edition after
edition of the work was demanded. He corrected one or two little
inaccuracies, and at once set about writing a Second Part, and a volume
of _Serious Reflections_ which had occurred to Crusoe amidst his
adventures. These were purely commercial excrescences upon the original
work. They were popular enough at the time, but those who are tempted
now to accompany Crusoe in his second visit to his island and his
enterprising travels in the East, agree that the Second Part is of
inferior interest to the first, and very few now read the _Serious
Reflections_.

The _Serious Reflections_, however, are well worth reading in connexion
with the author's personal history. In the preface we are told that
_Robinson Crusoe_ is an allegory, and in one of the chapters we are told
why it is an allegory. The explanation is given in a homily against the
vice of talking falsely. By talking falsely the moralist explains that
he does not mean telling lies, that is, falsehoods concocted with an
evil object; these he puts aside as sins altogether beyond the pale of
discussion. But there is a minor vice of falsehood which he considers it
his duty to reprove, namely, telling stories, as too many people do,
merely to amuse. "This supplying a story by invention," he says, "is
certainly a most scandalous crime, and yet very little regarded in that
part. It is a sort of lying that makes a great hole in the heart, in
which by degrees a habit of lying enters in. Such a man comes quickly up
to a total disregarding the truth of what he says, looking upon it as a
trifle, a thing of no import, whether any story he tells be true or
not."