
The first few chapters of [_The Study in Scarlet_](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/244), the first book in *The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes*, is when Dr. Watson and Mr. Holmes meet each other for the first time. Much of Holmes’ character and his philosophy on life and knowledge is revealed through these interactions.

When Watson finally discovered Holmes’ profession, he didn't know exactly what made Sherlock a better detective than anyone else.

Holmes’ answer:

> I’m generally able, through my knowledge of the history of crime, to set [mysteries] straight. There is a strong family resemblance about misdeeds, and if you have all the details of 1,000 at your finger ends, it is odd if you can’t unravel the 1,001.

Sherlock also said: “I have a lot of special knowledge which I apply to the problem, and which facilitates matters wonderfully.”

But Sherlock didn’t just go around cramming his head full of facts; he only remembered what would be useful for his “application.” When Watson first learned this, he was astonished:

(*Sherlock Holmes* is written from the perspective of Watson.)

> 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.
> 
> “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 difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skillful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools 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.”

(Holmes’s “attic” quote is one of my favorites in any fiction book—nay, of _any_ book.)

To help himself understand what Sherlock knows and doesn't know, Watson writes this telling assessment of the “limits” to Holmes’ knowledge:

> SHERLOCK HOLMES—his limits.
> 
> 1. Knowledge of Literature.—Nil.
> 2. Philosophy.—Nil.
> 3. Astronomy.—Nil.
> 4. Politics.—Feeble.
> 5. Botany.—Variable. Well up in belladonna, opium, and poisons generally. Knows nothing of practical gardening.
> 6. Geology.—Practical, but limited. Tells at a glance different soils from each other. After walks has shown me splashes upon his trousers, and told me by their colour and consistence in what part of London he had received them.
> 7. Chemistry.—Profound.
> 8. Anatomy.—Accurate, but unsystematic.
> 9. Sensational Literature.—Immense. He appears to know every detail of every horror perpetrated in the century.
> 10. Plays the violin well.
> 11. Is an expert singlestick player, boxer, and swordsman.
> 12. Has a good practical knowledge of British law.

Sherlock puts it another way:

> It is of the highest importance in the art of detection to be able to recognize, out of a number of facts, which are incidental and which vital. Otherwise your energy and attention must be dissipated instead of being concentrated.

### How to learn like Sherlock Holmes and become great in your field

1. Figure out what subjects matter to your life’s “application.”
2. Learn everything you can about those subjects. Learn also everything you can about the subjects once or twice removed from those subjects.
3. Learn the history of your field better than anyone else so you can determine patterns that no one else sees.

---

### Bonus knowledge about Sherlock Holmes and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

What’s fascinating is that Holmes was based on one of [Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s medical professors](https://www.life.com/arts-entertainment/sherlock-holmes-the-influence-of-the-worlds-most-famous-detective/):

> In 1876, Doyle enrolled as a medical student at the University of Edinburgh, where he met the man who would change his life. On his first day in Dr. Joseph Bell’s class, Doyle watched the professor hold up a vial filled with amber liquid. This, gentlemen, contains a most potent drug,” Bell said. “It is extremely bitter to the taste. Now, I wish to see how many of you have developed the powers of observation that God granted you.” Opening the vial, Bell stirred the liquid with his finger. “As I don’t ask anything of my students which I wouldn’t do alone with myself, I will taste it before passing it around.” He licked his finger and grimaced at the seemingly unpleasant taste. Then he passed the vial around. Would Doyle meet the challenge? When it was his turn, he tasted the liquid. But neither Doyle nor his classmates proved to have what Bell was looking for. “Gentlemen,” the professor said, “I am deeply grieved to find that not one of you has developed his power of perception, the faculty of observation which I speak so much of, for if you had truly observed me, you would have seen that, while I placed my index finger in the awful brew, it was my middle finger—aye—which somehow found its way into my mouth.


How to learn like Sherlock Holmes


I started reading John Stuart Mill's *Autobiography* this week, and it's terrific. Mill had a unique childhood filled with self-education and, you guessed it–reading! He writes:

> He [his father] not only drew my attention to the insight they afforded into Athenian institutions, and the principles of legislation and government which they often illustrated, but pointed out the skill and art of the orator—how everything important to his purpose was said at the exact moment when he had brought the minds of his audience into the state most fitted to receive it; how he made steal into their minds, gradually and by insinuation, thoughts which, if expressed in a more direct manner, would have roused their opposition. **Most of these reflections were beyond my capacity of full comprehension at the time; but they left seed behind, which germinated in due season** (Emphasis mine).

That's a profound idea. Just because you read something beyond your "capacity of full comprehension" doesn't mean you aren't learning or getting something out of it. Seeds are being deposited, which, in due time, will sprout.

Those seeds won't germinate, though, if they aren't watered, rooted in good soil, and given the proper amount of sunlight. I may be over-extending the analogy here (I don't think I am), but without Mill's continued learning, the seeds he and his father planted at a young age would’ve never germinated. What he learned later in life allowed him to put greater context into what he read when he was younger. Without reading challenging works at a young age, his education may not have been as fruitful and advanced as it was when he was older. Without continuing to read challenging works when he got older, he may have never understood what he read when he was younger. It’s a feedback loop. As you read more, you begin to understand how little you know. As you continue to read more, those blindspots get back-filled, and knowledge begins to compound. You may be studying something for ten years, but nothing clicks until you finally read something that brings it all together in the eleventh. That’s the magic (and the difficulty) with compounding–all the big results are always at the end.

So, keep reading things above your “grade level.” It might not all make sense today, but it will if you keep reading and learning. When that happens, people will wonder how you got so smart. When they ask that, you know your compounding has started paying off. (But don’t let this fool you into thinking you’ve arrived. There’s still a lot you probably don’t know!)


Reading plants seeds

The following passage comes from *What Do You Care What Other People Think?* by Richard Feynman. It's a collection of stories from his life and curious adventures.

> We had the *Encyclopedia Britannica* at home. When I was a small boy he used to sit me on his lap and read to me from the *Britannica.* We would be reading, say, about dinosaurs. It would be talking about the *Tyrannosaurus Rex*, and it would say something like, "This dinosaur is twenty-five feet high and its head is six feet across."
> 
> My father would stop reading and say, "Now, let's see what that meant. That would mean that if he stood in our front yard, he would be tall enough to put his head through our window up here" (We were on the second floor.) "But his head would be too wide to fit into the window." Everything he read to me he would translate as best he could into some reality.
> 
> I learned from my father to translate: everything I read to try and figure out what it really means, what it's really saying.

The most important step to learning is to understand what it truly means. Make learning a reality! If you're reading about the scientific revolution, make a timeline with all the dates of discoveries or lives of influential scientists to see which lives overlapped. You could even try mapping where each discovery took place. Any tangible action that makes learning abstract concepts into something tangible will bode better for your knowledge (and subsequently everyone else!)