INTRODUCTION. 
Ixvii 
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 
fkill of the navigator, and the fcience of the aftronomer; 
while they have procured to us fo valuable accelftons in the 
feveral departments of natural hiftory, and furnilhed fuch 
opportunities of teaching us how to preferve the healths 
and lives of feamen, let us not forget another very impor¬ 
tant object of ftudy, for which they have afforded to the 
fpeculative phiiofopher ample materials : I mean the ftudy 
of human nature in various fituations, equally interefting 
as they are uncommon. 
However remote or fecluded from frequent intercourfe 
with more poliftied nations, the inhabitants of any parts of 
the world be, if hiftory or our own obfervation fhould make 
it evident that they have been formerly viftted, 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 ftate. This feems 
to be the fituation of the inhabitants of moft of the illands 
that lie contiguous to the continent of Alia, and of whofe 
manners and inftitutions the Europeans, who occafionally 
vilit them, have frequently given us accounts. But the 
illands which our enterprizing diicoverers viftted in the 
centre of the South Pacific Ocean, and are, indeed, the prin¬ 
cipal fcenes of their operations, were untrodden ground. 
The inhabitants, as far as could be obferved, were unmixed 
with any different tribe, by occaftonal intercourfe, fubfe- 
i 2 quent 
