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MOBY DICK; OR 
Is it not a saying in every one’s mouth, Possession is half of the law : 
that is, regardless of how the thing came* into possession ? But often 
possession is the whole of the law. What are the sinews and souls of 
Russian serfs and Republican slaves but Past-Fish, whereof possession 
is the whole of the law ? What to the rapacious landlord is the widow’s 
last mite but a Fast-Fish ? What is yonder undetected villain’s marble 
mansion with a door-plate for a waif; what is that hut a Fast-Fish? 
What is the ruinous discount which Mordeeai, the broker, gets from 
poor Woebegone, the bankrupt, on a loan to keep Woebegone’s family 
from starvation ; what is that ruinous discount but a Fast-Fish ? What 
is the Archbishop of Savesoul’s income of £100,000 seised from the 
scant bread and cheese of hundreds of thousands of broken-backed 
labourers; what is that globular £100,000 but a Fast-Fish ? What are 
the Duke of Dunder’s hereditary towns and hamlets but Fast-Fish? 
What to that redoubted harpooneer, John Bull, is poor Ireland, but a 
Fast-Fish? What to that apostolic lancer, Brother Jonathan, is Texas 
but a Fast-Fish ? And concerning all these, is not Possession the whole 
of the law? 
But if the doctrine of Fast-Fish be pretty generally applicable, the 
kindred doctrine of Loose-Fish is still more widely so. That is inter- 
nationally and universally applicable. 
What was America in 1492 but a Loose-Fish, in which Columbus 
struck the Spanish standard by way of waiting it for his royal master 
and mistress? What was Poland to the Czar? What Greece to the 
Turk ? What India to England ? What at last will Mexico be to the 
United States ? All Loose-Fish. 
What are the Rights of Man and the Liberties of the World but 
Loose-Fish? What all men’s minds and opinions but Loose-Fish? 
What is the principle of religious belief in them but a Loose-Fish? 
What to the ostentatious smuggling verbalists are the thoughts of 
thinkers but Loose-Fish? What is the great globe itself but a Loose- 
Fish! And what are you, reader, but a Loose-Fish and a Fast-Fish, 
too ? 
