305 
THE WHITE WHALE 
large or however small — at one and the same instant of time; never 
mind if they lie side by side and touch each other. But if you now 
come to separate these two objects, and surround each by a circle of 
profound darkness ; then, in order to see one of them, in such a manner 
as to bring your mind to bear on it, the other will be utterly ex- 
cluded from your contemporary consciousness. How is it, then, with 
the whale? True, both his eyes, in themselves, must simultaneously 
act; hut is his brain so much more comprehensive, combining, and 
subtle than man’s, that he can at the same moment of time at- 
tentively examine two distinct prospects, one on one side of him, and 
the other in an exactly opposite direction ? If he can, then is it as 
marvellous a thing in him, as if a man were able simultaneously to 
go through the demonstrations of two distinct problems in Euclid. 
Nor, strictly investigated, is there any incongruity in this comparison. 
It may be but an idle whim, but it has always seemed to me, that 
the extraordinary vacillations of movement displayed by some 
whales when beset by three or four boats ; the timidity and liability to 
queer frights, so common to such whales ; I think that all this in- 
directly proceeds from the helpless perplexity of volition, in which 
their divided and diametrically opposite powers of vision must in- 
volve them. 
But the ear of the whale is full as curious as the eye. If you are 
an entire stranger to their race, you might hunt over these two heads 
for hours, and never discover that organ. The ear has no external 
leaf whatever; and into the hole itself you can hardly insert a quill, 
so wondrously minute is it. It is lodged a little behind the eye. With 
respect to their ears, this important difference is to be observed 
between the sperm whale and the right. While the ear of the former 
has an external opening, that of the latter is entirely and evenly 
covered over with a membrane, so as to be quite imperceptible from 
without. 
Is it not curious, that so vast a being as the whale should see the 
world through so small an eye, and hear the thunder through an 
ear which is smaller than a hare’s? But if his eyes were broad as 
the lens of Hershel’s great telescope; and his ears capacious as the 
porches of cathedrals; would that make him any longer of sight, or 
