Chương Chương 80 · The Nut.

If the Sperm Whale be physiognomically a Sphinx, to the phrenologist

his brain seems that geometrical circle which it is impossible to

square.

In the full-grown creature the skull will measure at least twenty feet

in length. Unhinge the lower jaw, and the side view of this skull is as

the side of a moderately inclined plane resting throughout on a level

base. But in life—as we have elsewhere seen—this inclined plane is

angularly filled up, and almost squared by the enormous superincumbent

mass of the junk and sperm. At the high end the skull forms a crater to

bed that part of the mass; while under the long floor of this crater—in

another cavity seldom exceeding ten inches in length and as many in

depth—reposes the mere handful of this monster’s brain. The brain is at

least twenty feet from his apparent forehead in life; it is hidden away

behind its vast outworks, like the innermost citadel within the

amplified fortifications of Quebec. So like a choice casket is it

secreted in him, that I have known some whalemen who peremptorily deny

that the Sperm Whale has any other brain than that palpable semblance

of one formed by the cubic-yards of his sperm magazine. Lying in

strange folds, courses, and convolutions, to their apprehensions, it

seems more in keeping with the idea of his general might to regard that

mystic part of him as the seat of his intelligence.

It is plain, then, that phrenologically the head of this Leviathan, in

the creature’s living intact state, is an entire delusion. As for his

true brain, you can then see no indications of it, nor feel any. The

whale, like all things that are mighty, wears a false brow to the

common world.

If you unload his skull of its spermy heaps and then take a rear view

of its rear end, which is the high end, you will be struck by its

resemblance to the human skull, beheld in the same situation, and from

the same point of view. Indeed, place this reversed skull (scaled down

to the human magnitude) among a plate of men’s skulls, and you would

involuntarily confound it with them; and remarking the depressions on

one part of its summit, in phrenological phrase you would say—This man

had no self-esteem, and no veneration. And by those negations,

considered along with the affirmative fact of his prodigious bulk and

power, you can best form to yourself the truest, though not the most

exhilarating conception of what the most exalted potency is.

But if from the comparative dimensions of the whale’s proper brain, you

deem it incapable of being adequately charted, then I have another idea

for you. If you attentively regard almost any quadruped’s spine, you

will be struck with the resemblance of its vertebræ to a strung

necklace of dwarfed skulls, all bearing rudimental resemblance to the

skull proper. It is a German conceit, that the vertebræ are absolutely

undeveloped skulls. But the curious external resemblance, I take it the

Germans were not the first men to perceive. A foreign friend once

pointed it out to me, in the skeleton of a foe he had slain, and with

the vertebræ of which he was inlaying, in a sort of basso-relievo, the

beaked prow of his canoe. Now, I consider that the phrenologists have

omitted an important thing in not pushing their investigations from the

cerebellum through the spinal canal. For I believe that much of a man’s

character will be found betokened in his backbone. I would rather feel

your spine than your skull, whoever you are. A thin joist of a spine

never yet upheld a full and noble soul. I rejoice in my spine, as in

the firm audacious staff of that flag which I fling half out to the

world.

Apply this spinal branch of phrenology to the Sperm Whale. His cranial

cavity is continuous with the first neck-vertebra; and in that vertebra

the bottom of the spinal canal will measure ten inches across, being

eight in height, and of a triangular figure with the base downwards. As

it passes through the remaining vertebræ the canal tapers in size, but

for a considerable distance remains of large capacity. Now, of course,

this canal is filled with much the same strangely fibrous substance—the

spinal cord—as the brain; and directly communicates with the brain. And

what is still more, for many feet after emerging from the brain’s

cavity, the spinal cord remains of an undecreasing girth, almost equal

to that of the brain. Under all these circumstances, would it be

unreasonable to survey and map out the whale’s spine phrenologically?

For, viewed in this light, the wonderful comparative smallness of his

brain proper is more than compensated by the wonderful comparative

magnitude of his spinal cord.

But leaving this hint to operate as it may with the phrenologists, I

would merely assume the spinal theory for a moment, in reference to the

Sperm Whale’s hump. This august hump, if I mistake not, rises over one

of the larger vertebræ, and is, therefore, in some sort, the outer

convex mould of it. From its relative situation then, I should call

this high hump the organ of firmness or indomitableness in the Sperm

Whale. And that the great monster is indomitable, you will yet have

reason to know.