[Footnote 33: The account now given of the religion of the Otaheitans is imperfect in point of information; and it must be held erroneous as to principle, by all who chuse to derive their knowledge on the subject of man's relation to his Maker, from the sacred Scriptures alone. The imperfections were the consequence of the very limited acquaintance with these islanders, which existed at the time, and may be readily filled up on the authority of subsequent observers. As to the erroneousness of principle, it may suffice for the enlightened reader to remind him, that as the Supreme Being himself is the only object of worship, so every other one that is worshipped in place of him, whether made by the hands of men, or found made by nature, or conceived to exist, is virtually and essentially an idol. It follows from this, that idolatry is much more prevalent than is usually imagined, and is by no means confined to nations in a barbarous or semi-barbarous state. The worshippers of reason, or virtue, or taste, or fashion, or nature, or one's own goodness and piety, or the spiritual entities of philosophers and religionists, are as truly idolaters as the worshippers of the grand lama in Thibet, or the economical sect in Lapland, who content themselves with the largest stone they can find. Mr Hume, who has been at such pains to enquire into the natural history of religion, is most unnecessarily cautious as to the qualifying of one of his most important assertions on the subject of the prevalence of idolaters. "The savage tribes of America, Africa, and Asia," says he, "are all idolaters. Not a single exception to this rule. Insomuch, that, were a traveller to transport himself into any unknown region; if he found inhabitants cultivated with arts and sciences, though even upon that supposition there are odds against their being theists, yet could he not safely, till further enquiry, pronounce any thing on that head; but if he found them ignorant and barbarous, he might beforehand declare them idolaters; and there is scarcely a possibility of his being mistaken." He might have said with perfect confidence, that a traveller would scarcely find one person in a thousand amid all the tribes of the earth, who was entitled to be considered as a pure theist, or at least, who was single-minded in the exercise of his religious devotion. The generality of mankind, in short, are like a certain people of old,--they fear the Lord, and worship their own gods. Then again as to the disinterestedness of the Otaheitan devotees, Dr Hawkesworth egregiously blunders--as if it were conceivable, or any way natural, that they or any other people could possibly serve their divinities without entertaining the hope that they should be served by them in turn. This were to exceed even Homer in his exaggerating human nature at the expence of the gods. That poet puts a curious speech in the mouth of Dione, the mother of Venus, when addressing her daughter, who had been wounded by Diomede:--