Page:An account of the natives of the Tonga Islands.djvu/22

xiv supply, in a great measure, the history of the earlier ages of mankind, so much obscured as they are by romance and fabulous traditions. The infancy of human society in our times probably differs not much, except in local circumstances, from that which existed four thousand years ago:—by a scrupulous and attentive examination of the present, therefore, we may be able to form some tolerable judgment of the past. And this is not, I apprehend, a matter of idle curiosity or of useless knowledge, as some have the presumption to cry out;—for all that regards man, whether it be good or evil, is highly interesting to man;—the good, that we may either adopt or improve;—the evil, that we may either avoid or remedy:—and as the history of the human individual cannot be perfectly understood, without examining him in his infancy,—so a true knowledge of the species in a state of society is not to be thoroughly and easily acquired, without a suitable investigation into the incipient stages of the social compact; for there it is that the passions of man are