Loook hard and nowhere will you find a greater lesson in lack of planning than the one we find in DeFoe's Robinson Crusoe.

Having felled a magnificent tree, he carved it into a boat, only to find that he couldn't move it into the sea, admitting: "Now I saw, though too late, the folly of beginning a work before we count the cost, and before we judge rightly of our own strength to go through with it."

Although the book may be read as an adventure book, it is a serious books filled with practical, economic, and religious speculations.


Here's an example for Crusoe's homespun wisdom: "To-day we love what to-morrow we hate; to-day we seek what to-morrow we shun; to-day we desire what to-morrow we fear." And, "Fear of danger is ten thousand times more terrifying than danger itself."

Of Course economists never cease to use Crusoe's one-man economy as a paradigm and economic laboratory of the limits of self-sufficiency--autarky.

The most poignant and soul-searching questioning is his glimpse of a non-universal Christianity:

"...why it has pleas'd God to hide the like saving Knowledge from so many Millions of Souls, who if I might judge by this poor Savage, would make a much better use of it than we did."

For, though Christians aren't cannibals as Friday's people are, why are they denied Jesus Christ's saving grace?

Although Robinson Crusoe is a wonderful book, I wouldn't go as far as Gabriel Beteredge (House-Steward and narrator of Wilkie Collins' The Moonstone) as to say:

" ...such a book as Robinson Crusoe never was written, and never will be written again. I have tried that book for years--...and I have found it my friend in need in all the necessities of this mortal life.. When my spirits are bad--Robinson Crusoe. When I want advice--Robinson Crusoe. In past times, when my wife plagued me; in present times, when I have had a drop too much--Robinson Crusoe. I have worn out six stout Robinson Crusoes with hard work in my service."

Yet, a fine companion this is book can become, just as Friday was to Crusoe.