{"id":"01KF7FPRCBF21G3P9XD91SKN38","cid":"bafkreidxfxgbvvxy7xrrcds5aff25rs3mmkxjqfh7pajn4seqylooaubdy","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":8592,"extracted_at":"2026-01-18T02:42:19.353Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 0","source_file":"01KESYVB66H8YEVTN88DWE9W8D","start_line":8542,"text":"CHAPTER 46. Surmises.\r\n\r\nThough, consumed with the hot fire of his purpose, Ahab in all his\r\nthoughts and actions ever had in view the ultimate capture of Moby\r\nDick; though he seemed ready to sacrifice all mortal interests to that\r\none passion; nevertheless it may have been that he was by nature and\r\nlong habituation far too wedded to a fiery whaleman’s ways, altogether\r\nto abandon the collateral prosecution of the voyage. Or at least if\r\nthis were otherwise, there were not wanting other motives much more\r\ninfluential with him. It would be refining too much, perhaps, even\r\nconsidering his monomania, to hint that his vindictiveness towards the\r\nWhite Whale might have possibly extended itself in some degree to all\r\nsperm whales, and that the more monsters he slew by so much the more he\r\nmultiplied the chances that each subsequently encountered whale would\r\nprove to be the hated one he hunted. But if such an hypothesis be\r\nindeed exceptionable, there were still additional considerations which,\r\nthough not so strictly according with the wildness of his ruling\r\npassion, yet were by no means incapable of swaying him.\r\n\r\nTo accomplish his object Ahab must use tools; and of all tools used in\r\nthe shadow of the moon, men are most apt to get out of order. He knew,\r\nfor example, that however magnetic his ascendency in some respects was\r\nover Starbuck, yet that ascendency did not cover the complete spiritual\r\nman any more than mere corporeal superiority involves intellectual\r\nmastership; for to the purely spiritual, the intellectual but stand in\r\na sort of corporeal relation. Starbuck’s body and Starbuck’s coerced\r\nwill were Ahab’s, so long as Ahab kept his magnet at Starbuck’s brain;\r\nstill he knew that for all this the chief mate, in his soul, abhorred\r\nhis captain’s quest, and could he, would joyfully disintegrate himself\r\nfrom it, or even frustrate it. It might be that a long interval would\r\nelapse ere the White Whale was seen. During that long interval Starbuck\r\nwould ever be apt to fall into open relapses of rebellion against his\r\ncaptain’s leadership, unless some ordinary, prudential, circumstantial\r\ninfluences were brought to bear upon him. Not only that, but the subtle\r\ninsanity of Ahab respecting Moby Dick was noways more significantly\r\nmanifested than in his superlative sense and shrewdness in foreseeing\r\nthat, for the present, the hunt should in some way be stripped of that\r\nstrange imaginative impiousness which naturally invested it; that the\r\nfull terror of the voyage must be kept withdrawn into the obscure\r\nbackground (for few men’s courage is proof against protracted\r\nmeditation unrelieved by action); that when they stood their long night\r\nwatches, his officers and men must have some nearer things to think of\r\nthan Moby Dick. For however eagerly and impetuously the savage crew had\r\nhailed the announcement of his quest; yet all sailors of all sorts are\r\nmore or less capricious and unreliable—they live in the varying outer\r\nweather, and they inhale its fickleness—and when retained for any\r\nobject remote and blank in the pursuit, however promissory of life and\r\npassion in the end, it is above all things requisite that temporary\r\ninterests and employments should intervene and hold them healthily\r\nsuspended for the final dash.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 0"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KF7FPMPXHZ1P3FBY4CQZX1RV","peer_label":"Chapter 46","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KF7FPMPXHZ1P3FBY4CQZX1RV","peer_label":"Chapter 46","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"partOf"},{"peer":"01KF7FPKDT5SHSH1ZQV6ABHQCA","peer_label":"Moby Dick; Or, The Whale","peer_type":"book","predicate":"partOf"},{"peer":"01KESYJX0Z6XE0HWTS5N3SDG0B","peer_label":"The Classics","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KF7FPRC82Q23DYHNPH6BR5QC","peer_label":"Chunk 1","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-18T02:42:19.870Z","ts":"2026-01-18T02:42:27.830Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KF7FCDA7SCSJ6A30TDPDSJQV"}}