There is much unconscious humour in the account of the hermit’s efforts to overcome Nature, for although he has some of Crusoe’s practical ability, he trusts rather to theory. Depressed at the persistent hatred of a tribe of monkeys, for whom he has dug roots, he meditates on its cause, and deciding that he must have forfeited their respect “by hiding the beauty of his fabric under a gaudy disguise”, he discards the irrational garments which distinguish men from monkeys, and presents in his own person Rousseau’s Natural Man.