276 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



THE STORY OF AUTONOUS. 



By Prof. WILLIAM HENRY HUDSON, 



STANFORD UNIVERSITY. 



IF any one in these days condescends to read that first favorite with 

 the youth of bygone generations, 'Robinson Crusoe/ he will be 

 aware that, disregarding its more subtle meanings and the allegorical 

 intention upon which the author himself laid so much stress, we may 

 consider the narrative as a detailed study of self-help. In our actual 

 world, we depend to an extent which we seldom appreciate upon social 

 environment, organization, the labors of others and the accumulated 

 culture-capital of the past. Well, DeFoe takes a man of an eminently 

 sturdy, courageous and practical type, casts him upon a desert island 

 and there leaves him to shift for himself. Supplies which he manages 

 to rescue from the ship give him a fund of materials to start with; 

 but henceforth he has nothing to rely upon, save his own head and 

 hands. To follow this plain and simple hero in his successful struggle 

 against seemingly overwhelming odds does not fall within our present 

 plan. But the issue shows how, by his own unaided exertions, an 

 individual may reconstruct for himself a great many of those conditions 

 of comfortable living which we are apt to assume to be impossible 

 without the cooperation of others; and thus the mastery of man over 

 his fate is vindicated — though it would certainly go hard with most 

 of us if we were thrown into Eobinson Crusoe's position. 



Rousseau, who was the first to point out the educational significance 

 of DeFoe's book, desired that Emile, in studying it, should examine 

 the mariner's behavior, "to try to find out whether he omitted anything, 

 and whether anything could have been better done." Questions of 

 this kind may often have been in the reader's mind and are useful in 

 bringing out the admirable art exhibited in every episode and detail. 

 But there is another question which will, perhaps, occur to some, and 

 which at once carries us beyond DeFoe's own narrative into a very wide 

 field of speculation. Robinson Crusoe was already a mature man when 

 he was cast away; he was in full possession of the stored-up resources 

 of civilization; his mental powers were well developed; he brought 

 a man's strength and training to bear upon the problems of his life. 

 The theme of his story is, therefore, on the philosophic side, after all, 

 a relatively simple and narrow one. But now let us suppose for a 

 moment that he had been cut adrift from all his social moorings before 

 education began — before, even, consciousness had awakened to a sense 



