66 INTRODUCTION TO THE 



" voyage remarkable, in the opinion of every bene- 

 " volent person, when the disputes about a southern 

 <; continent shall have ceased to engage the attention, 

 " and to divide the judgment of philosophers."* 



5. But while our late voyages have opened so 

 many channels to an increase of knowledge in the 

 several articles already enumerated ; while they have 

 extended our acquaintance with the contents of the 

 globe ; while they have facilitated old tracks, and 

 have opened new ones for commerce ; while they 

 have been the means of improving the skill of the 

 navigator, and the science of the astronomer ; while 

 they have procured to us so valuable accessions in 

 the several departments of natural history, and fur- 

 nished such opportunities of teaching us how to pre- 

 serve the healths and lives of seamen, let us not 

 forget another very important object of study, for 

 which they have afforded to the speculative philosopher 

 ample materials : I mean the study of human nature 

 in various situations, equally interesting as they are 

 uncommon. 



However remote or secluded from frequent inter- 

 course with more polished nations the inhabitants of 

 any parts of the world be, if history or our own 

 observation should make it evident that they have 

 been formerly visited, and that foreign manners and 

 opinions, and languages, have been blended with 

 their own, little use can be made of what is observed 

 amongst such people, toward drawing a real picture 

 of man in his natural uncultivated state. This seems 

 to be the situation of the inhabitants of most of the 

 islands that lie contiguous to the continent of Asia, 

 and of whose manners and institutions the Europeans, 

 who occasionally visit them, have frequently given 

 us accounts. But the islands which our enterprising 

 discoverers visited in the centre of the South Pacific 

 Ocean, and are, indeed, the principal scenes of their 



* See Vol. IV. p. 266. 



