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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from In the South Seas by Robert Louis Stevenson: say it) to excuse his mushroom honours.
It will be observed with surprise that both these tapus are for
thoroughly sensible ends. With surprise, I say, because the nature
of that institution is much misunderstood in Europe. It is taken
usually in the sense of a meaningless or wanton prohibition, such
as that which to-day prevents women in some countries from smoking,
or yesterday prevented any one in Scotland from taking a walk on
Sunday. The error is no less natural than it is unjust. The
Polynesians have not been trained in the bracing, practical thought
of ancient Rome; with them the idea of law has not been disengaged
from that of morals or propriety; so that tapu has to cover the
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