A HOME BY THE SEA–RAIATEA
These virtues, the prayers, the sacrifices, the belief in a supreme being and eternity, show that the Tahitians were imbued with a natural religion, for
The existence of God is so many ways manifest and the obedience we owe Him so congruous to the light of reason, that a great part of mankind give testimony to the law of nature.
LOCKE.
The natives had no literature nor any communication with the outside world farther than the neighboring island groups. Their only book was nature, and this was read and studied with eagerness and intelligence. Their ancient history consisted of legendary lore handed down from generation to generation. But
There are books extant which they must needs allow of as proper evidence; even the mighty volumes of visible nature, and the everlasting tables of right reason.
BENTLEY.
From century to century, from generation to generation, these people, without leaving a permanent record of what had happened and without being conscious of art or science, lived and died in a state of happiness and contentment.
For he had no catechism but the creation, needed no study but recollection, and read no book but the volume of the world.
SOUTH.
That ignorance and vice should have existed among this primitive people, so completely isolated from the progressive part of the world, is not strange, as they lived in a land of plenty, fed and clothed, as it were, by the almost unaided resources of nature, conditions largely responsible for their inborn laziness. Ignorance and superstition go hand in hand. The Tahitians have always been extremely superstitious and both civilization and Christianization have been powerless in eradicating this national evil. We must, however, judge them not too severely in this matter, as superstition is by no means uncommon amongst us at the present day. Our best poets are not exempt from it.
I think it is the weakness of mine eyes
That shapes this wondrous apparition:
It comes upon me!
SHAKESPEARE.
Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep.
MILTON.
A person terrified with the imagination of spectres is more reasonable than one who thinks the appearance of spirits fabulous and groundless.
ADDISON.
With the progress and spread of education of the masses, superstition will gradually be starved out here as elsewhere. The greatest vice of the Tahitians is licentiousness, which remains as when Captain Cook visited the island. In speaking of the looseness of the marital relations, he says: