from the moment that she has
put these hopeful lessons in practice, and realized the symbols of the
dance.[14]

[Footnote 14: If it be considered that in Otaheite women are very early
marriageable, and that families are easily reared, one will not find
cause for censuring the impolicy, whatever is thought of the immodesty,
according to our notions, of the kind of dances here mentioned. It seems
reasonable enough, that the girls should be instructed in the only arts
requisite to obtain the affections of the other sex. Can it be said,
that the system of female education established in our own country, is
half so judicious, which prescribes a series of instructions in drawing
and music, velvet-painting, &c. to girls who, it is morally certain,
will never have the least occasion for them, and who, whatever
excellence they attain, totally abandon them on the day they happen to
change their names? Or shall we say, these things are like the gestures
of the Otaheitan damsels, merely symbols used as snares for the careless
beaux, who pretend to taste and fashion, and indicative of the indolence
and extravagance which are to succeed the marriage ceremony? The fact
is, and it is foolish to attempt concealing it, that women in general
have a nature so ductile as to be quite readily fashioned to any model
which is conceived agreeable to the other sex, and that they all have
sufficient sagacity to practise the arts in demand, till they have
accomplished the destiny of their constitution. On the supposition that
these arts are equally commensurate to their object, it may well be
asked, why some should be condemned and not others--or what authority
any people have to reproach the current allurements of another? In the
eyes of an impartial spectator, if we can suppose there really is one,
all of them must appear alike as to nature and origin, and to differ
only in respect of adaptation to the ends in view. He would consider
them all as signs, merely more or less expressive, and might be induced
to censure most strongly, if he censured at all, the people who, in
using them, affected the closest concealment of the purposes intended by
them. A philosopher ought never to lose sight of this maxim, that human
nature is essentially the same throughout the world, and that all the
desires and passions belonging to it have the same origin, and are
equally good or bad as to morality; from which it follows, that customs
and manners are to be judged