If, then, you properly
put these statements together, and reason upon them a bit,
you will clearly perceive that, according to all human reasoning,
Procopius's sea-monster, that for half a century stove the ships
of a Roman Emperor, must in all probability have been a sperm whale.
CHAPTER 46
Surmises
Though, consumed with the hot fire of his purpose, Ahab in all his
thoughts and actions ever had in view the ultimate capture of Moby Dick;
though he seemed ready to sacrifice all mortal interests to that
one passion; nevertheless it may have been that he was by nature
and long habituation far too wedded to a fiery whaleman's ways,
altogether to abandon the collateral prosecution of the voyage.
Or at least if this were otherwise, there were not wanting other
motives much more influential with him. It would be refining
too much, perhaps, even considering his monomania, to hint that his
vindictiveness towards the White Whale might have possibly extended
itself in some degree to all sperm whales, and that the more monsters
he slew by so much the more he multiplied the chances that each
subsequently encountered whale would prove to be the hated one he hunted.
But if such an hypothesis be indeed exceptionable, there were still
additional considerations which, though not so strictly according
with the wildness of his ruling passion, yet were by no means
incapable of swaying him.
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