Daniel Defoe wondered whether goodness was not preferable to greatness.
In 1722 the Duke of Marlborough died, the most celebrated English general of the War of the Spanish Succession, during which he never suffered a defeat. The splendour of the ceremonies, the national mourning, the monuments in his honour, the wealth he had accumulated, Daniel Defoe described them all; and then he reminded us: he is dead.
Hours after running away to sea, Robinson Crusoe was sorry he ever left home.
Against the advice of his affectionate father and the pleadings of his distraught mother, Robinson Crusoe, then eighteen, refused to study for the law and announced he would go to sea. This remained little more than a shapeless gesture of teenage rebellion for a year. Then one day a friend went to Hull for a trip up the coast to London in his father’s ship, and invited Robinson to come along for the ride.
Daniel Defoe argues that it is in every man’s interest to watch the women in his life realise their full potential.
One of the first public men in England to address inequality between the sexes was Daniel Defoe (1660-1731), author of ‘Moll Flanders’. Defoe wanted a ‘female academy’ set up to educate women to their full potential, and argued that it was in every man’s interest.