[Footnote 2: In the reign of Tiberius, A. D. 18, Germanicus attempted to
visit Samothrace;--'illum in regressu sacra Samothracum visere
nitentem obvii aquilones depulere.' Tacit. 'Ann.' II. e. 54. Ed.]



NOTES ON ROBINSON CRUSOE. [1]

(Vol. i. p. 17.)
But my ill fate pushed me on now with an obstinacy that nothing could
resist; and though I had several times loud calls from my reason, and
my more composed judgment to go home, yet I had no power to do it. I
know not what to call this, nor will I urge that it is a secret
overruling decree that hurries us on to be the instruments of our own
destruction, even though it be before us, and that we rush upon it
with our eyes open.

The wise only possess ideas; the greater part of mankind are possessed
by them. Robinson Crusoe was not conscious of the master impulse, even
because it was his master, and had taken, as he says, full possession of
him. When once the mind, in despite of the remonstrating conscience, has
abandoned its free power to a haunting impulse or idea, then whatever
tends to give depth and vividness to this idea or indefinite
imagination, increases its despotism, and in the same proportion renders
the reason and free will ineffectual. Now, fearful calamities,
sufferings, horrors, and hair-breadth escapes will have this effect, far
more than even sensual pleasure and prosperous incidents. Hence the evil
consequences of sin in such cases, instead of retracting or deterring
the sinner, goad him on to his destruction. This is the moral of
Shakspeare's 'Macbeth', and the true solution of this paragraph,--not any