📝 您未登录，登录后完成练习可保存成绩、查看最佳记录。
总字符
0
正确字符
0
错误字符
0
错误率
0.00%
耗时(秒)
0
速度 WPM
0
0 / 44
1If the Sperm Whale be physiognomically a Sphinx, to the phrenologist his brain seems that geometrical circle which it is
2impossible to square. In the full-grown creature the skull will measure at least twenty feet in length. Unhinge the
3lower jaw, and the side view of this skull is as the side of a moderately inclined plane resting throughout on a level
4base. But in life--as we have elsewhere seen--this inclined plane is angularly filled up, and almost squared by the
5enormous superincumbent mass of the junk and sperm. At the high end the skull forms a crater to bed that part of the
6mass; while under the long floor of this crater--in another cavity seldom exceeding ten inches in length and as many in
7depth--reposes the mere handful of this monster's brain. The brain is at least twenty feet from his apparent forehead in
8life; it is hidden away behind its vast outworks, like the innermost citadel within the amplified fortifications of
9Quebec. So like a choice casket is it secreted in him, that I have known some whalemen who peremptorily deny that the
10Sperm Whale has any other brain than that palpable semblance of one formed by the cubic-yards of his sperm magazine.
11Lying in strange folds, courses, and convolutions, to their apprehensions, it seems more in keeping with the idea of his
12general might to regard that mystic part of him as the seat of his intelligence. It is plain, then, that phrenologically
13the head of this Leviathan, in the creature's living intact state, is an entire delusion. As for his true brain, you can
14then see no indications of it, nor feel any. The whale, like all things that are mighty, wears a false brow to the
15common world. If you unload his skull of its spermy heaps and then take a rear view of its rear end, which is the high
16end, you will be struck by its resemblance to the human skull, beheld in the same situation, and from the same point of
17view. Indeed, place this reversed skull (scaled down to the human magnitude) among a plate of men's skulls, and you
18would involuntarily confound it with them; and remarking the depressions on one part of its summit, in phrenological
19phrase you would say--This man had no self-esteem, and no veneration. And by those negations, considered along with the
20affirmative fact of his prodigious bulk and power, you can best form to yourself the truest, though not the most
21exhilarating conception of what the most exalted potency is. But if from the comparative dimensions of the whale's
22proper brain, you deem it incapable of being adequately charted, then I have another idea for you. If you attentively
23regard almost any quadruped's spine, you will be struck with the resemblance of its vertebræ to a strung necklace of
24dwarfed skulls, all bearing rudimental resemblance to the skull proper. It is a German conceit, that the vertebræ are
25absolutely undeveloped skulls. But the curious external resemblance, I take it the Germans were not the first men to
26perceive. A foreign friend once pointed it out to me, in the skeleton of a foe he had slain, and with the vertebræ of
27which he was inlaying, in a sort of basso-relievo, the beaked prow of his canoe. Now, I consider that the phrenologists
28have omitted an important thing in not pushing their investigations from the cerebellum through the spinal canal. For I
29believe that much of a man's character will be found betokened in his backbone. I would rather feel your spine than your
30skull, whoever you are. A thin joist of a spine never yet upheld a full and noble soul. I rejoice in my spine, as in the
31firm audacious staff of that flag which I fling half out to the world. Apply this spinal branch of phrenology to the
32Sperm Whale. His cranial cavity is continuous with the first neck-vertebra; and in that vertebra the bottom of the
33spinal canal will measure ten inches across, being eight in height, and of a triangular figure with the base downwards.
34As it passes through the remaining vertebræ the canal tapers in size, but for a considerable distance remains of large
35capacity. Now, of course, this canal is filled with much the same strangely fibrous substance--the spinal cord--as the
36brain; and directly communicates with the brain. And what is still more, for many feet after emerging from the brain's
37cavity, the spinal cord remains of an undecreasing girth, almost equal to that of the brain. Under all these
38circumstances, would it be unreasonable to survey and map out the whale's spine phrenologically? For, viewed in this
39light, the wonderful comparative smallness of his brain proper is more than compensated by the wonderful comparative
40magnitude of his spinal cord. But leaving this hint to operate as it may with the phrenologists, I would merely assume
41the spinal theory for a moment, in reference to the Sperm Whale's hump. This august hump, if I mistake not, rises over
42one of the larger vertebræ, and is, therefore, in some sort, the outer convex mould of it. From its relative situation
43then, I should call this high hump the organ of firmness or indomitableness in the Sperm Whale. And that the great
44monster is indomitable, you will yet have reason to know.
🎉 全部完成！共 44 行