Both Uses of

provincial
in
Moby Dick

But clear Truth is a thing for salamander giants only to encounter; how small the chances for the provincials then?†
Chpt 76-78 *

For unless you own the whale, you are but a provincial and sentimentalist in Truth.†
Chpt 76-78

Definitions:

(1) (provincial as in: provincial attitude)
unsophisticated (meant disapprovingly to refer to old-fashioned or narrow-minded attitudes and ideas)
(2) (meaning too rare to warrant focus)
meaning too rare to warrant focus:

Provincial can also mean "related to a province" or "related to the provinces." Its more literary meaning of unsophisticated originated as a pejorative term for ideas held in the provinces that were considered old-fashioned or uninformed by many who lived in the capital city.