# An inventory transformed into a cosmic limit

Commentary on Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton.

On [CH04.P033](https://glosses.org/orthodoxy/pg16769-r1/CH04.P033/#char=193,224): "there were two guns and one axe"

The numbers correspond to selected items in Crusoe's first raft cargo. In the inspected Project Gutenberg text of Defoe's *Robinson Crusoe* (first published 1719), chapter IV records two fowling pieces and, shortly afterwards, an axe among other tools. Chesterton selects real details for his parallel with two sexes and one sun; this is neither the entire first cargo nor Crusoe's final inventory. The digital witness reproduces a Seeley, Service illustrated edition; it does not establish what boyhood edition Chesterton read.

Defoe also gives the analogy a useful limit. Crusoe subsequently cultivates crops and increases his goats: his available resources can grow. Chesterton transfers the feeling of a finite salvaged stock to the whole order of existence. The claim that nothing can be added is therefore part of his cosmic fancy, rather than a full account of the novel's economy. What he preserves from Defoe is the sharpened value of ordinary equipment when survival depends on it.

## Sources

- [Daniel Defoe, The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, Project Gutenberg 521](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/521/521-h/521-h.htm), Title page (Seeley, Service; H. M. Brock illustrations); chapter IV, ‘My next care was for some ammunition and arms’ and ‘I had three encouragements’; chapter XVII, ‘increase my little flock’
- [University of St Andrews, 300 years of The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe](https://university-collections.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/2019/04/23/300-years-of-the-life-and-strange-surprizing-adventures-of-robinson-crusoe/), Opening paragraph: first publication 25 April 1719

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