Ixviii 
INTRODUCTION. 
quent to their original fettlement there; left entirely to 
their own powers for every art of life; and to their own re¬ 
mote traditions for every political or religious cuftom or in- 
ftitution; uninformed by fcience; unimproved by educa¬ 
tion ; in fhort, a fit foil from whence a careful obferver 
could collect faCts for forming a judgment, how far unaf- 
fifted human nature will be apt to degenerate; and in what 
refpeCts it can ever be able to excel. Who could have thought, 
that the brutal ferocity of feeding upon human flefh, and 
the horrid fuperftition of offering human facrifices, fhould 
be found to exift amongft the natives lately difcovered in 
the Pacific Ocean, who, in other refpeCts, appear to be no 
fir angers to the fine feelings of humanity, to have arrived 
at a certain ftage of focial life, and to be habituated to fub- 
ordination and government, which tend fo naturally to re- 
prefs the ebullitions of wild paflion, and expand the latent 
powers of the underftanding ? 
Or, if we turn from this melancholy picture, which will 
fuggeft copious matter for philofophical fpeculation, can 
we, without aftonifhment, obferve to what a degree of per¬ 
fection the fame tribe (and indeed we may here join, in 
fome of thofe inftances, the American tribes vifited in the 
courfe of the prefent voyage) have carried their favourite 
amufements, the plaintive fongs of their women, their dra¬ 
matic entertainments, their dances, their Olympian games, 
as we may call them; the orations of their Chiefs; the 
chants of their priefts; the folemnity of their religious pro- 
ceflions; their arts and manufactures *, their ingenious con¬ 
trivances to fupply the want of proper materials, and of effec¬ 
tive tools and machines ; and the wonderful productions of 
their perfevering labour under a complication of difad van¬ 
tages ; their cloth and their mats; their weapons; their fifli- 
ing- 
