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This is the paragraph that proceeded this line, which prompts Holmes's discourse, and the lines quoted don't work as well without the context: > His ignorance

This is the paragraph that proceeded this line, which prompts Holmes's discourse, and the lines quoted don't work as well without the context: > His ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge. Of contemporary literature, philosophy and politics he appeared to know next to nothing. Upon my quoting Thomas Carlyle, he inquired in the naivest way who he might be and what he had done. My surprise reached a climax, however, when I found incidentally that he was ignorant of the Copernican Theory and of the composition of the Solar System. That any civilized human being in this nineteenth century should not be aware that the earth travelled round the sun appeared to be to me such an extraordinary fact that I could hardly realize it. I suspect that Doyle gave Holmes this dialog because it was reflective of the character, not because Doyle thought it was a good description of the way the world or the mind works. If you read enough Holmes you can see pretty clearly that his character is very rarely the voice of the author—that's Watson, who admires Holmes's skill but is frequently frustrated by him as a person. I'm not even really convinced that Holmes could be as skilled as he's supposed to be with as broad ignorance as he's portrayed here as having. The science of deduction as he's supposed to apply it in the stories would actually require rather encyclopedic knowledge of many different topics in order to understand the wide array of humans he's supposed to be reading (and indeed, in later Holmes stories he exhibits this kind of encyclopedic knowledge of extremely obscure details of many fields).

Retric 2y ago
I’ve taken this to suggest he has an eclectic rather than encyclopedic body of knowledge. Having a “well rounded education” is different than randomly jumping deeply into various topics. Abstractly, everyone is limited to finite life experiences. Knowing the earth orbits the sun is unlikely to be irrelevant for a detective, but knowing local soils might be. If common knowledge would have cracked a case there would be little need of a great detective, thus the greatest detective might be quite ignorant of many things. Though obviously Holmes might could be having a bit of fun with Watson.
TMWNN 2y ago
> and indeed, in later Holmes stories he exhibits this kind of encyclopedic knowledge of extremely obscure details of many fields Correct. The consensus among Holmes scholars is that Holmes was having some fun with Watson given that this is right after they meet and become roommates.
knighthack 2y ago
> The science of deduction as he's supposed to apply it in the stories would actually require rather encyclopedic knowledge of many different topics in order to understand the wide array of humans he's supposed to be reading --- I partly disagree with this. You live with people. A trained person can learn to detect differences - of gestures, habits, behaviour - far more easily, and would not require the broad knowledge that computers need for effective pattern-matching and deduction. (And since Holmes is doing his detective work constantly, he would have been honed and trained enough for that sort of thing.) That Holmes is ignorant of mainstream things - whilst being extremely conversant in the eclectic - does not necessarily impair his deductive abilities. After all, deduction is just the ability to tie facts after facts and event and event - and to trace effect to causation. Deducing who might have done something seem entirely within the realm of possibility and limits of Sherlock Holmes' knowledge, given that the evidence he looks into often makes a look of sense in context. (Now, deducing motive is a different thing altogether - no one really knows what's in the heart of men.)
taneq 2y ago
> I'm not even really convinced that Holmes could be as skilled as he's supposed to be with as broad ignorance as he's portrayed here as having. Agreed, assuming Holmes wasn’t (as a poster below suggests) essentially just trolling Watson here. That said, I found the first couple of Sherlock Holmes books to be infuriating, with the big reveal at the end coming across as a total deus ex machina that was in no way foreshadowed or set up by the preceding story. Apparently this improves in the later books though?
- lolinder 2y ago
  It doesn't dramatically improve but it does get better than the first few books. This is early in the detective fiction genre, before anyone had really formalized that you ought to give the reader a fighting chance of getting the answer (or at least they should be kicking themselves for not getting it). Even in stories towards the end of the series Holmes will often just disappear for a whole day, come home and make a cryptic remark to Watson about having found the answer, and then later expose the whole story with the key bits of evidence having been collected off camera. I think that what makes some of the early stories like A Study in Scarlet particularly hard for people who started with later detective stories is that good portions of them are barely in the detective fiction genre at all, being more about Doyle's fantasies about foreign lands than they are about the detective. That can be pretty disorienting for someone who goes in with expectations that were created by later detective fiction.

Retric 2y ago

I’ve taken this to suggest he has an eclectic rather than encyclopedic body of knowledge. Having a “well rounded education” is different than randomly jumping deeply into various topics. Abstractly, everyone is limited to finite life experiences. Knowing the earth orbits the sun is unlikely to be irrelevant for a detective, but knowing local soils might be. If common knowledge would have cracked a case there would be little need of a great detective, thus the greatest detective might be quite ignorant of many things. Though obviously Holmes might could be having a bit of fun with Watson.

TMWNN 2y ago

> and indeed, in later Holmes stories he exhibits this kind of encyclopedic knowledge of extremely obscure details of many fields Correct. The consensus among Holmes scholars is that Holmes was having some fun with Watson given that this is right after they meet and become roommates.

knighthack 2y ago

> The science of deduction as he's supposed to apply it in the stories would actually require rather encyclopedic knowledge of many different topics in order to understand the wide array of humans he's supposed to be reading --- I partly disagree with this. You live with people. A trained person can learn to detect differences - of gestures, habits, behaviour - far more easily, and would not require the broad knowledge that computers need for effective pattern-matching and deduction. (And since Holmes is doing his detective work constantly, he would have been honed and trained enough for that sort of thing.) That Holmes is ignorant of mainstream things - whilst being extremely conversant in the eclectic - does not necessarily impair his deductive abilities. After all, deduction is just the ability to tie facts after facts and event and event - and to trace effect to causation. Deducing who might have done something seem entirely within the realm of possibility and limits of Sherlock Holmes' knowledge, given that the evidence he looks into often makes a look of sense in context. (Now, deducing motive is a different thing altogether - no one really knows what's in the heart of men.)

taneq 2y ago

> I'm not even really convinced that Holmes could be as skilled as he's supposed to be with as broad ignorance as he's portrayed here as having. Agreed, assuming Holmes wasn’t (as a poster below suggests) essentially just trolling Watson here. That said, I found the first couple of Sherlock Holmes books to be infuriating, with the big reveal at the end coming across as a total deus ex machina that was in no way foreshadowed or set up by the preceding story. Apparently this improves in the later books though?

lolinder 2y ago
It doesn't dramatically improve but it does get better than the first few books. This is early in the detective fiction genre, before anyone had really formalized that you ought to give the reader a fighting chance of getting the answer (or at least they should be kicking themselves for not getting it). Even in stories towards the end of the series Holmes will often just disappear for a whole day, come home and make a cryptic remark to Watson about having found the answer, and then later expose the whole story with the key bits of evidence having been collected off camera. I think that what makes some of the early stories like A Study in Scarlet particularly hard for people who started with later detective stories is that good portions of them are barely in the detective fiction genre at all, being more about Doyle's fantasies about foreign lands than they are about the detective. That can be pretty disorienting for someone who goes in with expectations that were created by later detective fiction.