Pine finds that the island produces food abundantly with little or no effort, and he soon enjoys a leisurely existence, engaging in open sexual activity with the four women.
One of the women, a black slave girl, gives rise to a tribe called the Phills, who increasingly reject the impositions of laws, rules, and Bible readings which are established in an effort to create some form of social order.
Instead of finding an advanced society from which the travellers can learn, the explorers discover a primitive island race in need of rescue from the threat of civil war.
Although the island initially seems a paradise of sexual freedom and idyllic plenty, the story is one of dystopia, a devolution into a primitive and crucially unproductive state.
[citation needed] The lack of creativity and industry are heightened by the fact that the islanders themselves reproduce in great numbers, leaving in three generations a large population with no scientific or artistic development.