310 
MOBY DICK; OR 
Does not this whole head seem to speak of an enormus practical 
resolution in facing death? This Right Whale I take to have been 
a Stoic; the Sperm Whale, a Platonian, who might have taken up 
Spinoza in his latter years. 
CHAPTER LXXV 
THE BATTERING-RAM 
Ere quitting, for the nonce, the Sperm Whale’s head, I would have 
you — as a sensible physiologist, simply — particularly remark its front 
aspect, in all its compacted collectedness. I would have you in- 
vestigate it now with the sole view of forming to yourself some un- 
exaggerated, intelligent estimate of whatever battering-ram power 
may be lodged there. Here is a vital point; for you must either 
satisfactorily settle this matter with yourself, or for ever remain 
an infidel as to one of the most appalling, but not the less true events, 
perhaps anywhere to be found in all recorded history. 
You observe that in the ordinary swimming position of the Sperm 
Whale, the front of his head presents an almost wholly vertical plane 
to the water; you observe that the lower part of that front slopes 
considerably backwards, so as to furnish more of a retreat for the 
long socket which receives the boon>like lower jaw; you observe 
that the mouth is entirely under the head, much in the same way, 
indeed, as though your own mouth were entirely under your chin. 
Moreover, you observe that the whale has no external nose; and that 
what nose he has — his spout-hole — is on the top of his head; you ob- 
serve that his eyes and ears are at the side of his head, nearly one- 
third of his entire length from the front. Wherefore, you must now 
have perceived that the front of the Sperm Wh'ale’s head is a dead, 
blind wall without a single organ or tender prominence of any sort 
whatsoever. Furthermore, you are now to consider that only in the 
extreme, lower, backward sloping part of the front of the head is 
there the slightest vestige of bone; and not till you get near twenty 
feet from the forehead do you come to the full cranial development. 
So that this whole enormous boneless mass is as one wad. Finally, 
