Note 1 — Chapter III · TRANSACTIONS AT OTAHEITE, AND THE SOCIETY ISLANDS; AND PROSECUTION OF THE VOYAGE TO THE COAST OF NORTH AMERICA.

Footnote 1:

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Captain Cook's remark has often been exemplified in other instances. The tendency to revert to barbarism is so strong, as to need to be continually checked by the despotism of refined manners, and all the healthful emulations of civilized societies. Perhaps the rather harsh observation of Dr Johnson, that there is always a great deal of scoundrelism in a low man, is more strictly applicable to the cases of savages in general, than to even the meanest member of any cultivated community. But in the case of a superiorly endowed individual situate amongst a mass of ruder beings, to all of whom he is attached by the strongest ties of affection and early acquaintance, another powerfully deranging cause is at work in addition to the natural tendency to degenerate, viz. the necessity of accommodating himself to established customs and opinions. The former agent alone, we know, has often degraded Europeans. Is it to be thought wonderful then, that, where both principles operate, a man of Omai's character should speedily relinquish foreign acquirements, and retrograde into his original barbarity?—E.