If we study any writing of Defoe’s in connexion with the circumstances of its production, we find that it is many-sided in its purposes, as full of side aims as a nave is full of spokes.  These supplementary moral chapters to Robinson Crusoe, admirable as the reflections are in themselves, and naturally as they are made to arise out of the incidents of the hero’s life, contain more than meets the eye till we connect them with the author’s position.  Calling the tale an allegory served him in two ways.  In the first place, it added to the interest of the tale itself by presenting it in the light of a riddle, which was left but half-revealed, though he declared after such explanation as he gave that “the riddle was now expounded, and the intelligent reader might see clearly the end and design of the whole work.”  In the second place, the allegory was such an image of his life as he wished, for good reasons, to impress on the public mind.  He had all along, as we have seen, while in the secret service of successive governments, vehemently protested his independence, and called Heaven and Earth to witness that he was a poor struggling, unfortunate, calumniated man.  It was more than ever necessary now when people believed him to be under the insuperable displeasure of the Whigs, and he was really rendering them such dangerous service in connexion with the Tory journals, that he should convince the world of his misfortunes and his honesty.  The Serious Reflections consist mainly of meditations on Divine Providence in times of trouble, and discourses on the supreme importance of honest dealing.  They are put into the mouth of Robinson Crusoe, but the reader is warned that they occurred to the author himself in the midst of real incidents in his own life.  Knowing what public repute said of him, he does not profess never to have strayed from the paths of virtue, but he implies that he is sincerely repentant, and is now a reformed character.  “Wild wicked Robinson Crusoe does not pretend to honesty himself.”  He acknowledges his early errors.  Not to do so would be a mistaken piece of false bravery.  “All shame is cowardice.  The bravest spirit is the best qualified for a penitent.  He, then, that will be honest, must dare to confess that he has been a knave.”  But the man that has been sick is half a physician, and therefore he is both well fitted to counsel others, and being convinced of the sin and folly of his former errors, is of all men the least likely to repeat them.  Want of courage was not a feature in Defoe’s diplomacy.  He thus boldly described the particular form of dishonesty with which, when he wrote the description, he was practising upon the unconscious Mr. Mist.