“I suppose you are right, Holmes. I still cannot imagine a scenario where this information would be of practical value to you, though.”
“The trouble with many people is that they have very limited imaginations, Dr. Watson. The mind is trained to pay no particular attention to detail because it imagines the ordinary. For instance, if a person sees a man with a shaven face, the person will conclude that the face is cleanly shaven so long as no stubble is easily perceived. This, of course, is an imagining as beard growth varies from man to man. If one were to pay closer attention, one would see that the grain on a given side of the facial skin is pulled tighter in a direction. This indicates which way the blade is habitually dragged across the skin. Once one notices this level of detail, one becomes acquainted with the fact that the skin shows signs of how long it has been since a shave was last had more quickly than the appearance of stubble.”
“So you are saying that because people do not acquaint themselves with the level of detail you have verbally dictated they are simply imagining everything is as it is, so long as nothing assaults their senses to the contrary?”
“Most minds are lazy ones, Dr. Watson. They would rather settle on the consensus of reality and worry about what pub will satisfy their desire for steak and drink. This is where they employ their imagination for a bad steak that has the wrong texture even in the slightest is an assault on the senses to the average gourmand. The imagination always informs the appetite the most for the unpracticed on what food should be or taste like.”
“That seems cynical but I must admit that the same observation applies to doctoring. A doctor might notice a single detail in a host of symptoms that allows the physician to diagnose the patient. The patient, of course, pays acute attention to what they are experiencing that might be the cause of their discomfort that fits, quite naturally, with what they imagine the problem to be. Indeed, some people imagine the problem so well that though there is no actual problem, the problem asserts itself as though it is nonetheless.”
“Even the Bible has a physician as a disciple, Watson! Of course, that physician had recourse to another physician who had some discipline of the spiritual mind and its apparatus.”
“I suppose if it was good enough for God it should be good enough for us, Mr. Holmes?”
“A detective does not distinguish himself by contemplating that which cannot be comprehended,” Mr. Watson. “On the contrary, a detective is someone employed to explain a mystery. If the mystery cannot be solved then one simply lacks a detective with the ability to say why a thing is so. Nonetheless, there are those things which remain beyond the ability for us to detect and so remain a mystery. Our imaginations, though, are capable of solving much more than the average person would like. Knowing more about one’s surroundings has the curious property of making one also more responsible for what is happening around them. Now, if you are done with theologizing, I really could do with a plug of tobacco.”
“Wouldn’t you rather have the leaves?”
“Quite so,” replied Holmes.
Quite a nice meditation on the importance of (and difficulty of maintaining) constant awareness of one's surroundings. This is a skill very important to the art and science of tracking since one must never assume that the landscape is simply dull and monotonous. Instead, a good tracker must investigate the landscape down to the tiniest detail in order to better discern the nature of its inhabitants and history.