INTRODUCTION. hv 



5. But while our late voyages have opened fo many chan- 

 nels to an increafe of knowledge in the feveral articles al- 

 ready enumerated ; while they have extended our acquaint- 

 ance with the contents of the globe ; while they have faci- 

 litated old tracks, and have opened new ones for com- 

 merce ; while they have been the means of improving the 

 Ikill of the navigator, and the fcience of the aflionomer; 

 while they have procured to us fo valuable acceffions in the 

 feveral departments of natural hiftory, and furnifhed fucli 

 opportunities of teaching us how to prefcrve the healths 

 and lives of feamen, let us not forget another very import- 

 ant objeit of fludy, for which they have afForded to the 

 fpeculative philofopher ample materials : I mean the fludy 

 of human nature in various fituations, equally interefting 

 as they are uncommion. 



However remote or fecluded from frequent intercourfe 

 with more poliflied nations, the inhabitants of any parts of 

 the world be, if hiflory or our own obfervation fhould make 

 it evident that they have been formerly vifired, and that 

 foreign manners and opinions, and languages, have been 

 blended with their own, little ufe can be made of what is 

 obferved amongft fuch people, toward drawing a real pic- 

 ture of man in his natural uncultivated flate. 7 his feems 

 to be the lituation of the inhabitants of mod of the iflands 

 that lie contiguous to the continent of Afia, and of whofe 

 manners and inftitutions the Europeans, who occafionally vifit 

 them, have frequently given us accounts. But the iflands 

 which our enterprifing difcoverers vifitcd in the centre of the 

 South Pacific Ocean, and are, indeed, the principal fcenes of 

 their operations, were untrodden ground. The inhabitants, 

 as far as could be obferved, were unmixed with any differ- 

 ent tribe, by occafional intercourfe, fubfequent to their 



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