I think his argument still holds when you also include "about yourself": in the 18th century people recognized the novel as having a power to help us exercise "

I think his argument still holds when you also include "about yourself": in the 18th century people recognized the novel as having a power to help us exercise "moral imagination". I fail to see why reading cannot help one understand oneself. EDIT: and I see that you were not arguing against that, in any case.