It is a moralizing tract, but contains some interesting anecdotes about contemporaries.
The first volume of his most famous work, the immortal story - partly adventure, partly moralizing - of The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, was published on the 25th of April 1719.
So far then, Midrash tends to include moralizing history, whether we call it narrative or romance, attached to names and events, and it is obviously exemplified whenever there are unmistakable signs of untrustworthy amplification and of some explicit religious or ethical aim colouring the narrative.
He does not free himself from the current theology either by rational moralizing like Kant, or by bold speculative synthesis like Fichte and Schelling.
His views are coloured by strong religious and political prejudice, and by a moralizing tendency, and his historical work has little critical value and is for the most part pure book-making, although he collected a vast amount of material which has been of use to other writers.
