{"id":"01KFNR89V2FC8HKP790MR7Y8R1","cid":"bafkreiffmwqgejgf7capvpe33kubfhqbljbmgwv2h6yi4za7ncqodrhcxe","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":13111,"extracted_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:04.740Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KFNR0Z394A878Y5AQ63MQEM2","start_line":13047,"text":"nothingness to him. Man may, in effect, be said to look out on the\r\nworld from a sentry-box with two joined sashes for his window. But with\r\nthe whale, these two sashes are separately inserted, making two\r\ndistinct windows, but sadly impairing the view. This peculiarity of the\r\nwhale’s eyes is a thing always to be borne in mind in the fishery; and\r\nto be remembered by the reader in some subsequent scenes.\r\n\r\nA curious and most puzzling question might be started concerning this\r\nvisual matter as touching the Leviathan. But I must be content with a\r\nhint. So long as a man’s eyes are open in the light, the act of seeing\r\nis involuntary; that is, he cannot then help mechanically seeing\r\nwhatever objects are before him. Nevertheless, any one’s experience\r\nwill teach him, that though he can take in an undiscriminating sweep of\r\nthings at one glance, it is quite impossible for him, attentively, and\r\ncompletely, to examine any two things—however large or however small—at\r\none and the same instant of time; never mind if they lie side by side\r\nand touch each other. But if you now come to separate these two\r\nobjects, and surround each by a circle of profound darkness; then, in\r\norder to see one of them, in such a manner as to bring your mind to\r\nbear on it, the other will be utterly excluded from your contemporary\r\nconsciousness. How is it, then, with the whale? True, both his eyes, in\r\nthemselves, must simultaneously act; but is his brain so much more\r\ncomprehensive, combining, and subtle than man’s, that he can at the\r\nsame moment of time attentively examine two distinct prospects, one on\r\none side of him, and the other in an exactly opposite direction? If he\r\ncan, then is it as marvellous a thing in him, as if a man were able\r\nsimultaneously to go through the demonstrations of two distinct\r\nproblems in Euclid. Nor, strictly investigated, is there any\r\nincongruity in this comparison.\r\n\r\nIt may be but an idle whim, but it has always seemed to me, that the\r\nextraordinary vacillations of movement displayed by some whales when\r\nbeset by three or four boats; the timidity and liability to queer\r\nfrights, so common to such whales; I think that all this indirectly\r\nproceeds from the helpless perplexity of volition, in which their\r\ndivided and diametrically opposite powers of vision must involve them.\r\n\r\nBut the ear of the whale is full as curious as the eye. If you are an\r\nentire stranger to their race, you might hunt over these two heads for\r\nhours, and never discover that organ. The ear has no external leaf\r\nwhatever; and into the hole itself you can hardly insert a quill, so\r\nwondrously minute is it. It is lodged a little behind the eye. With\r\nrespect to their ears, this important difference is to be observed\r\nbetween the sperm whale and the right. While the ear of the former has\r\nan external opening, that of the latter is entirely and evenly covered\r\nover with a membrane, so as to be quite imperceptible from without.\r\n\r\nIs it not curious, that so vast a being as the whale should see the\r\nworld through so small an eye, and hear the thunder through an ear\r\nwhich is smaller than a hare’s? But if his eyes were broad as the lens\r\nof Herschel’s great telescope; and his ears capacious as the porches of\r\ncathedrals; would that make him any longer of sight, or sharper of\r\nhearing? Not at all.—Why then do you try to “enlarge” your mind?\r\nSubtilize it.\r\n\r\nLet us now with whatever levers and steam-engines we have at hand, cant\r\nover the sperm whale’s head, that it may lie bottom up; then, ascending\r\nby a ladder to the summit, have a peep down the mouth; and were it not\r\nthat the body is now completely separated from it, with a lantern we\r\nmight descend into the great Kentucky Mammoth Cave of his stomach. But\r\nlet us hold on here by this tooth, and look about us where we are. What\r\na really beautiful and chaste-looking mouth! from floor to ceiling,\r\nlined, or rather papered with a glistening white membrane, glossy as\r\nbridal satins.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KFNR84E9M1BZBCTB8FZW0GC7","peer_label":"74","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KFNR84E9M1BZBCTB8FZW0GC7","peer_label":"74","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"partOf"},{"peer":"01KFNR81RMVAX2BBMMBW51V97D","peer_label":"Moby Dick; Or, The Whale","peer_type":"novel","predicate":"partOf"},{"peer":"01KFNR0H0Q791Y1SMZWEQ09FGV","peer_label":"Moby Dick","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KFNR89KRKN1S8TXD2X89W2R4","peer_label":"Chunk 2","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"},{"peer":"01KFNR89VCVBF0VJB6DE0JWFSQ","peer_label":"Chunk 0","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:05.363Z","ts":"2026-01-23T15:41:17.675Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}