Question

Abridged from Robinson Crusoe, by Daniel Defoe

Answer 1

What the historical context of the writing demonstrates or tells me is that 1) Even in that time, there was a lower, middle, and upper class of society.
The father says that those adventures are "either too far above me or too far below me," which means that those far above him are the upper class, those far below him the lower case, and he is the middle class. So the middle class did exist.