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CHAPTER 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 .
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