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8/6/2019 1877890 the Principles of Sherlock Holmes
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APPENDIX AExcerpts from The Complete Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to establish the Sherlock Method.
...courtesy Jock F. McTavish, 275 9853, Calgary. 14 October 1992. PAGE 1
ELEMENTARY, MY DEAR WATSON
In the fictional character Sherlock Holmes, we
have the master of deduction. Sir Arthur him-
self was a physician trained in diagnostics
whose hobbies included investigation of the
paranormal. Sherlock offers not merely
exquisite entertainment, but also lessons in
problem solving. To discover Sherlock's"Method", let us gather his advice on the sub-
ject.
PROFESSIONAL QUALITIES
"They say genius is an infinite capacity for taking
pains," he remarked with a smile. "It's a very bad
definition, but it does apply to detective work." 8.
"I never make exceptions. An exception disproves
the rule." 16.
"But why not eat?"
"Because the faculties become refined when you
starve them. Why, surely, as a doctor, my dear Watson,
you must admit that what your digestion gains in the
way of blood supply is so much lost to the brain. I ama brain, Watson. The rest of me is a mere appendix.
Therefore, it is the brain I must consider." 88.
"We all need help sometimes," said I. 22.
One of Sherlock Holmes's defects - if, indeed, one
may call it a defect - was that he was exceedingly
loath to communicate his full plans to any other person
until the instant of their fulfilment. Partly it came
no doubt from his own masterful nature, which loved to
dominate and surprise those who were around him. Partly
also from his professional caution, which urged him
never to take any chances. The result, however, was
very trying for those who were acting as his agents and
assistants." 67.
"Yes," he said in answer to my remark, "you haveseen me miss my mark before, Watson. I have an instinct
for such things, and yet it has sometimes played me
false. It seemed a certainty when first it flashed
across my mind in the cell at Winchester, but one
drawback of an active mind is that one can always
conceive alternative explanations which would make our
scent a false one. And yet - and yet - Well, Watson, we
can but try." 92.
"I can afford to talk of my blunders, for you know
my work well enough to be aware of my successes." 86.
"I have been beaten four times - three times by
men, and once by a woman." 31.
"I said that he was my superior in observation and
deduction. If the art of the detective began and endedin reasoning from an armchair, my brother would be the
greatest criminal agent that ever lived. But he has no
ambition and no energy. ... he was absolutely
incapable of working out the practical points which
must be gone into before a case could be laid before a
judge or jury." 43. (In reference to his brother
Mycroft Holmes.)
"He has two out of the three qualities necessary
for the ideal detective. He has the power of observa-
tion and that of deduction. He is only wanting in
knowledge, and that may come in time." 13.
A MASTER OF OBSERVATION
"I will not bias your mind by suggesting theories
or suspicions, Watson," said he; "I wish you simply to
report facts in the fullest possible manner to me, and
you can leave me to do the theorizing." 63.
"By George!" cried the inspector. "How ever did you
see that?"
"Because I looked for it." 48.
"Sherlock Holmes had listened with the utmost
intentness to the statement ... He now drew out his
notebook and jotted down one or two memoranda." 50.
He held his open notebook upon his knee, and from
time to time he jotted down figures and memoranda in
the light of his pocket-lantern. 18.
"This case is quite sufficiently complicated to
start with without the further difficulty of false
information." 89.
"It is just these very simple things which are
extremely liable to be overlooked." 24.
"The world is full of obvious things which nobody
by any chance ever observes." 58.
"On the contrary, to my mind nothing could be more
clear. Let me run over the principal steps. We
approached the case, you remember, with an absolutely
blank mind, which is always an advantage. We had formed
no theories. We were simply there to observe and to
draw inferences from our observations." 77.
"... (the old home was) surrounded by a high sun-
baked wall mottled with lichens and topped with moss,
the sort of wall - "
"Cut out the poetry, Watson," said Holmes severely.
"I note that it was a high brick wall." 93.
I had imagined that Sherlock Holmes would at once
have hurried into the house and plunged into a study of
the mystery. Nothing appeared to be further from his
intention. With an air of nonchalance which, under the
circumstances, seemed to me to border upon affectation,he lounged up and down the pavement, and gazed vacantly
at the ground, the sky, the opposite houses and the
line of railings. ... I had no doubt that he could see
a great deal which was hidden from me. 5.
"I can see nothing," said I, handing it back to my
friend.
"On the contrary, Watson, you can see everything
You fail, however, to reason from what you see. You are
too timid in drawing your inferences." 34.
A MASTER OF DEDUCTION
"We are coming now rather into the region of
guesswork," said Dr. Mortimer.
"Say, rather, into the region where we balance
probabilities and choose the most likely. It is the
scientific use of the imagination, but we have always
some material basis on which to start our speculation."
59.
"Ah, that is good luck. I could only say what was
the balance of probability. I did not at all expect to
be so accurate.
"But it was not mere guesswork?"
"No, no: I never guess. It is a shocking habit -
destructive to the logical faculty. What seems strange
to you is only so because you do not follow my train of
thought or observe the small facts upon which large
inferences may depend." 15.
"If I take it up I must understand every detail,"
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APPENDIX AExcerpts from The Complete Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to establish the Sherlock Method.
...courtesy Jock F. McTavish, 275 9853, Calgary. 14 October 1992. PAGE 2
said he. "Take time to consider. The smallest point may
be the most essential." 78.
"From a drop of water ... a logician could infer
the possibility of an Atlantic or a Niagara without
having seen or heard of one or the other. So all life
is a great chain, the nature of which is known whenever
we are shown a single link of it. Like all other arts,
the Science of Deduction and Analysis is one which can
only be acquired by long and patient study, nor is life
long enough to allow any mortal to attain the highest
possible perfection in it." 2.
"Elementary," said he. "It is one of those
instances where the reasoner can produce an effect
which seems remarkable to his neighbour, because the
latter has missed the one little point which is the
basis of the deduction. ... I hold in this hand several
threads of one of the strangest cases which ever
perplexed a man's brain, and yet I lack the one or two
which are needful to complete my theory. But I'll have
them, Watson, I'll have them!" 42.
"You said you had a clue?"
"Well, we have several, but we can only test their
value by further inquiry. The most difficult crime to
track is the one which is purposeless. Now this is not
purposeless. Who is it who profits by it?" 44.
"You see, my dear Watson" - he propped his test-
tube in the rack, and began to lecture with the air of
a professor addressing his class - "it is not really
difficult to construct a series of inferences, each
dependent upon its predecessor and each simple in
itself. If, after doing so, one simply knocks out all
the central inferences and presents one's audience with
the starting-point and the conclusion, one may produce
a startling, though possibly a meretricious, effect."
47.
"Let us take it link by link." 74.
Holmes shook his head gravely. "It would cease to
be a danger if we could define it," said he." 38.
"You have a theory?"
"Yes, a provisional one." 40.
"Ah! there lies our problem. There is one rather
obvious line of investigation." 79.
"I thought over every possible course, and this is
the best." 25.
"Circumstantial evidence is a very tricky thing,"
answered Holmes thoughtfully. "It may seem to point
very straight to one thing, but if you shift your own
point of view a little, you may find it pointing in an
equally uncompromising manner to something entirely
different." 28.
"You are right," said Holmes demurely; "you do find
it very hard to tackle the facts." 29.
A MASTER OF KNOWLEDGE"Education never ends, Watson. It is a series of
lessons with the greatest for the last." 80.
"Read it up - you really should. There is nothing
new under the sun. It has all been done before." 6.
"Never mind," said Holmes, laughing; "it is my
business to know things. Perhaps I have trained myself
to see what others overlook." 27.
"There is a strong family resemblance about mis-
deeds, and if you have all the details of a thousand at
your finger ends, it is odd if you can't unravel the
thousand and first." 3.
His ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge
... My surprise reached a climax;, however, when I
found incidentally that he was ignorant of the Coper-
nican Theory and of the composition of the Solar Sys-
tem. That any civilized human being in this nineteenth
century should not be aware that the earth travelled
round the sun appeared to me to be such an extraordi-
nary fact that I could hardly realize it.
"You appear to be astonished," he said, smiling at
my expression of surprise. "Now that I do know it I
shall do my best to forget it."
"To forget it!"
"You see," he explained, "I consider that a man's
brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you
have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A
fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he
comes across, so that the knowledge which might be
useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled
up with a lot of other things, so that he has a diffi-
culty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skilful
workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into
his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tool
which may help him in doing his work, but of these he
has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect
order. It is a mistake to think that that little room
has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend
upon it there comes a time when for every addition of
knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It
is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have
useless facts elbowing out the useful ones."
"But the Solar System!" I protested.
"What the deuce is it to me?" he interrupted impa-
tiently: "you say that we go round the sun. If we went
round the moon it would not make a pennyworth of dif-
ference to me or to my work." 1.
Holmes grinned at the last item. "Well," he said,
"I say now, as I said then, that a man should keep his
little brain-attic stocked with all the furniture that
he is likely to use, and the rest he can put away inthe lumber-room of his library, where he can get it if
he wants it." 33.
"... I cannot guarantee that I carry all the facts
in my mind. Intense mental concentration has a curious
way of blotting out what has passed. The barrister who
has his case at his fingers' ends and is able to argue
with an expert upon his own subject finds that a week
or two of the courts will drive it all out of his head
once more. So each of my cases displaces the last
..."69.
"I propose to devote my declining years to the
composition of a textbook, which shall focus the whole
art of detection into one volume." 54.
KNOWING WHEN IS ENOUGH
"Surely we have a case."
"Not a shadow of one - only surmise and conjecture.
We should be laughed out of court if we came with such
a story and such evidence." 66.
"I think that I have seen now all that there is to
see," said he. 36.
"Data! data! data!" he cried impatiently. "I can't
make bricks without clay." 39.
"No data yet," he answered. "It is a capital mis-
take to theorize before you have all the evidence. It
biases the judgment." 4.
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APPENDIX AExcerpts from The Complete Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to establish the Sherlock Method.
...courtesy Jock F. McTavish, 275 9853, Calgary. 14 October 1992. PAGE 4
effects to causes." 76.
THE NEED FOR RECESS
"Well, I gave my mind a thorough rest by plunging
into a chemical analysis. One of our greatest statesmen
has said that a change of work is the best rest. So it
is." 23.
"Sherlock Holmes had, in a very remarkable degree,
the power of detaching his mind at will. For two hours
the strange business in which we had been involved
appeared to be forgotten ..." 60.
One of the most remarkable characteristics of
Sherlock Holmes was his power of throwing his brain out
of action and switching all his thoughts on to lighter
things whenever he had convinced himself that he could
no longer work to advantage. 83.
THE RULE OF PERSPECTIVE
"You know my methods in such cases, Watson. I put
myself in the man's place, and, having first gauged his
intelligence, I try to imagine how I should myself have
proceeded under the same circumstances." 41.
"You'll get results, Inspector, by always putting
yourself in the other fellow's place, and thinking what
you would do yourself. It takes some imagination, but
it pays." 94.
CONTINGENCIES AND ALTERNATIVES
"... One should always look for a possible alter-
native, and provide against it. It is the first rule of
criminal investigation." 51.
"Very well," said Holmes, good-humouredly. "We all
learn by experience, and your lesson this time is that
you should never lose sight of the alternative." 52.
"We progress, my dear Watson, we progress. I hadseven different schemes for getting a glimpse of that
telegram, but I could hardly hope to succeed the very
first time." 53.
"Well, I don't profess to understand it yet. ...
But we hold several threads in our hands, and the odds
are that one or other of them guides us to the truth."
61.
"There go two of my threads, Watson. There is
nothing more stimulating than a case where everything
goes against you. We must cast round for another
scent." 62.
"Now we will take another line of reasoning. When
you follow two separate chains of thought, Watson, you
will find some point of intersection which shouldapproximate to the truth." 84.
"Keep your revolver near you night and day, and
never relax your precautions." 64.
"Luck had been against us again and again in this
inquiry, but now at last it came to my aid." 65.
"We owe you a deep apology, Sir Henry, for having
exposed you to this fright. I was prepared for a hound,
but not for such a creature as this. And the fog gave
us little time to receive him." 68.
CLIENT WISE
"Any news?" he asked eagerly.
"My report, as I expected, is a negative one," said
Holmes. ...
"You have not lost heart, then?"
"By no means." 45.
"I have no desire to make mysteries, but it is
impossible at the moment of action to enter into long
and complex explanations." 49.
"To tell the truth" - he sank his face into his
thin, white hands - "I have felt helpless. I have felt
like one of those poor rabbits when the snake is writh-
ing towards it. I seem to be in the grasp of some
resistless, inexorable evil, which no foresight and no
precautions can guard against."
"Tut! tut!" cried Sherlock Holmes. "You must act,
man, or you are lost. Nothing but energy can save you.
This is no time for despair." 32.
"... meanwhile take my assurance that the clouds
are lifting and that I have every hope that the light
of truth is breaking through." 91.
"Nay, madam, there again you ask me more than I can
possibly answer." 56.
"Start her up, Watson, for it's time that we were
on our way. I have a check for five hundred pounds
which should be cashed early, for the drawer is quite
capable of stopping it if he can." 87.
CONCLUSIONS
The Sherlock Method then is founded upon common
sense and specialist knowledge. Its exercise
depends upon sufficient observation. Deduction
is the skill tool to forge links in a chain of
reason. Solution is singular.
This detective procedure has much application
in any problem solving situation. It is used to
gather the data, to link the data, and so dis-
cover the truth behind the data.
This process is completely logical. It seems
otherwise only to those who skip steps: either
of data or reason. To those who master the
method, things are "Elementary, my dear
Watson!"
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APPENDIX AExcerpts from The Complete Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to establish the Sherlock Method.
...courtesy Jock F. McTavish, 275 9853, Calgary. 14 October 1992. PAGE 5
The Complete Sherlock Holmes in two volumes published
by Doubleday. Original copyrights by Harper and
Brothers, Sir A.C. Doyle, Doubleday, Collier's Weekly,
International Magazine Company and Liberty Weekly.
NOTES:
1. p21, A Study in Scarlet.
2. p23. A Study in Scarlet.
3. p24. A Study in Scarlet.
4. p27. A Study in Scarlet.
5. p28. A Study in Scarlet.
6. p29. A Study in Scarlet.
7. p30. A Study in Scarlet.
8. p31. A Study in Scarlet.
9. p49. A Study in Scarlet.
10. p50. A Study in Scarlet.
11. p83. A Study in Scarlet.
12. p84. A Study in Scarlet.
13. p91. The Sign of Four.
14. p92. The Sign of Four.
15. p93. The Sign of Four.
16. p96. The Sign of Four.
17. p98. The Sign of Four.
18. p99. The Sign of Four.
19. p109. The Sign of Four.
20. p110. The Sign of Four.
21. p111. The Sign of Four.
22. p132. The Sign of Four.
23. p135. The Sign of Four.
24. p136. The Sign of Four.
25. p137. The Sign of Four.
26. p141. The Sign of Four.
27. p192. A Case of Identity.
28. p204. The Boscombe Valley Mystery.
29. p211. The Boscombe Valley Mystery.
30. p213. The Boscombe Valley Mystery.
31. p219. Five Orange Pips.
32. p223. Five Orange Pips.
33. p225. Five Orange Pips.
34. p246. The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle.
35. p272. The Adventure of the Speckled Band.
36. p311. The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet.
37. p315. The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet.38. p321. The Adventure of the Copper Beeches.
39. p322. The Adventure of the Copper Beeches.
40. p359. The Yellow Face.
41. p295. The Musgrave Ritual.
42. p412. The Crooked Man.
43. p436. The Greek Interpreter.
44. p457. The Naval Treaty.
45. p461. The Naval Treaty.
46. p484. The Adventure of the Empty House.
47. p511. The Adventure of the Dancing Men.
48. p519. The Adventure of the Dancing Men.
49. p521. The Adventure of the Dancing Men.
50. p541. The Adventure of the Solitary Cyclist.
51. p567. The Adventure of Black Peter.
52. p570. The Adventure of Black Peter.
53. p628. The Adventure of the Missing Three-
Quarter.54. p636. The Adventure of the Abbey Grange.
55. p642. The Adventure of the Abbey Grange.
56. p657. The Adventure of the Second Stain.
57. p683. The Hound of the Baskervilles.
58. p683. The Hound of the Baskervilles.
59. p687. The Hound of the Baskervilles.
60. p692. The Hound of the Baskervilles.
61. p693. The Hound of the Baskervilles.
62. p696. The Hound of the Baskervilles.
63. p698. The Hound of the Baskervilles.
64. p699. The Hound of the Baskervilles.
65. p736. The Hound of the Baskervilles.
66. p747. The Hound of the Baskervilles.
67. p754. The Hound of the Baskervilles.
68. p757. The Hound of the Baskervilles.
69. p761. The Hound of the Baskervilles.
70. p764. The Hound of the Baskervilles.
71. p771. The Valley of Fear.
72. p789. The Valley of Fear.
73. p870. The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge.
74. p875. The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge.
75. p883. The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge.
76. p895. The Adventure of the Cardboard Box.
77. p895. The Adventure of the Cardboard Box.
78. p902. The Adventure of the Red Circle.
79. p904. The Adventure of the Red Circle.
80. p907. The Adventure of the Red Circle.
81. p925. The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington
Plans.
82. p926. The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington
Plans.
83. p929. The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington
Plans.
84. p950. The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax.
85. p964. The Adventure of the Devil's Foot.
86. p971. His Last Bow.
87. p980. His Last Bow.
88. p1014. The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone.
89. p1059. The Problem of Thor Bridge.
90. p1064. The Problem of Thor Bridge.
91. p1068. The Problem of Thor Bridge.
92. p1069. The Problem of Thor Bridge.
93. p1114. The Adventure of the Retired Colourman.
94. p1121. The Adventure of the Retired Colourman.