Chapter LXXX: 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 view 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
vertebrae to a strung necklace of dwarfed skulls, all bearing
rudimental resemblance to the skull proper. It is a German conceit,
that the vertebrae 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 vertebrae 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 vertebrae 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 vertebrae, 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.