Phrenological Delusion of the Head
Phrenologically, the sperm whale’s head in its living, intact state is an entire delusion. No indications of the true brain can be seen or felt from the exterior. Like all mighty things, the whale wears a false brow to the common world, presenting only a deceptive facade to those who attempt to read character through surface features of the skull.
Skull Resemblance to Human Cranium
When the skull is unloaded of its spermy heaps and viewed from behind, the high end strikingly resembles the human skull seen from the same angle. Scaled down to human magnitude, this reversed skull would be involuntarily confused with human skulls. Phrenological examination would note depressions on the summit, indicating no self-esteem and no veneration. These negations, combined with the whale’s prodigious bulk and power, provide the truest conception of what the most exalted potency is.
Vertebrae as Undeveloped Skulls
A German conceit holds that vertebrae are absolutely undeveloped skulls. The curious external resemblance was noted before the Germans by a foreign friend who pointed it out while inlaying the vertebrae of a slain enemy into his canoe’s prow. The spine resembles a strung necklace of dwarfed skulls, all bearing rudimental resemblance to the skull proper.
Spinal Cord Phrenology
The phrenologists have omitted an important investigation by not pursuing the spine. Character is betokened in the backbone—better to feel one’s spine than one’s skull. A thin joist of a spine never yet upheld a full and noble soul. In the sperm whale, the cranial cavity connects to the first neck-vertebra, where the spinal canal measures ten inches across with eight inches in height, triangular with base downward. The canal tapers but remains large for considerable distance, filled with the same fibrous substance as the brain and directly communicating with it. The spinal cord remains of undecreasing girth for many feet after emerging from the brain’s cavity, almost equal to the brain’s size.
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