But in the great Sperm Whale, this high and mighty god-like dignity
inherent in the brow is so immensely amplified, that gazing on it,
in that full front view, you feel the Deity and the dread powers
more forcibly than in beholding any other object in living nature.
For you see no one point precisely; not one distinct feature is revealed;
no nose, eyes, ears, or mouth; no face; he has none, proper; nothing but
that one broad firmament of a forehead, pleated with riddles;
dumbly lowering with the doom of boats, and ships, and men.
Nor, in profile, does this wondrous brow diminish; though that way
viewed its grandeur does not domineer upon you so. In profile,
you plainly perceive that horizontal, semi-crescentic depression
in the forehead's middle, which, in a man, is Lavater's mark of genius.
But how? Genius in the Sperm Whale? Has the Sperm Whale
ever written a book, spoken a speech? No, his great genius
is declared in his doing nothing particular to prove it.
It is moreover declared in his pyramidical silence. And this reminds
me that had the great Sperm Whale been known to the young Orient World,
he would have been deified by their child-magian thoughts.
They deified the crocodile of the Nile, because the crocodile
is tongueless; and the Sperm Whale has no tongue, or at least
it is so exceedingly small, as to be incapable of protrusion.
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