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MOBY DICK; OR 
is plain that he can never see an object which is exactly ahead, no 
more than he can one exactly astern. In a word, the position of the 
whale’s eyes corresponds to that of a man’s ears; and you may fancy 
for yourself, how it would fare with you, did you sideways survey 
objects through your ears. You would find that you could only com- 
mand some thirty degrees of vision in advance of the straight side- 
line of sight; and about thirty more behind it. If your bitterest foe 
were walking straight towards you, with dagger uplifted in broad day, 
you would not be able to see him, any more than if he were stealing 
upon you from behind. In a word, you would have two backs, so to 
speak ; but, at the same time also, two fronts (side-fronts) : for what 
is it that makes the front of a man — what, indeed, but his eyes ? 
Moreover, while in most other animals that I can now think of, the 
eyes are so planted as imperceptibly to blend their visual power, so 
as to produce one picture and not two to the brain; the peculiar po- 
sition of the whale’s eyes, effectually divided as they are by many 
cubic feet of solid head, which towers between them like a great moun- 
tain separating two lakes in valleys; this, of course, must wholly 
separate the impressions which each independent organ imparts. The 
whale, therefore, must see one distinct picture on this side, and an- 
other distinct picture on that side ; while all between must be profound 
darkness and nothingness to him. Man may, in effect, be said to 
look out on the world from a sentry-box with two joined sashes for 
his window. But with the whale, these two sashes are separately 
inserted, making two distinct windows, but sadly impairing the view. 
This peculiarity of the whale’s eyes is a thing always to be borne in 
mind in the fishery ; and to be remembered by the reader in some sub- 
sequent scenes. 
A curious and most puzzling question might be started concerning 
this visual matter as touching the Leviathan. But I must be con- 
tent with a hint. So long as a man’s eyes are open in the light, 
the act of seeing is involuntary; that is, he cannot then help mechan- 
ically seeing whatever objects are before him. Nevertheless, any 
one’s experience will teach him, that though he can take in an ^dis- 
criminating sweep of things at one glance, it is quite impossible for 
him, attentively, and completely, to examine any two things — however 
