Chapter 105: Does the Whale's Magnitude Diminish?— Will

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Why is Ishmael so fucking autistic?

>But will any whaleman believe these stories? No. The whale of today is as big as his ancestors in Pliny's time. And if ever I go where Pliny is, I, a whaleman (more than he was), will make bold to tell him so. Because I cannot understand how it is, that while the Egyptian mummies that were buried thousands of years before even Pliny was born, do not measure so much in their coffins as a modern Kentuckian in his socks; and while the cattle and other animals sculptured on the oldest Egyptian and Nineveh tablets, by the relative proportions in which they are drawn, just as plainly prove that the high-bred, stall-fed, prize cattle of Smithfield, not only equal, but far exceed in magnitude the fattest of Pharaoh's fat kine; in the face of all this, I will not admit that of all animals the whale alone should have degenerated.

Why does he care so much that his whales are bigger than those of some ancient scholar from 2000 years ago?
This is the chapter that convinced for certain me Ishmael is an autist. Only an autist would get so butthurt about this.