by Josef Steiff
Holmes’s drug use is his attempt to stay in an active state (as close to actuality as modally possible) for as long as possible. He ignores his conatus in an attempt to maintain a state of near actuality. Human modal units are not designed to maintain that intense level of activity continuously, since we can only exist within the scale of potentiality. To attempt to exceed this is to endanger shortening the already temporary duration to which we exist.
And so, Holmes’s cocaine use is his attempt to maintain a complete form of actuality while still being merely a temporary modal unit. Or, in other words, Sherlock Holmes has a Godcomplex. Which should not surprise us; he is, after all, a nineteenth-century Englishman.
The Most Impious and the Most Dangerous Man of the Century
Honour is not opposed to reason, but can arise from it
—Spinoza, EIVP58
Therefore he who is born free and remains free has only adequate ideas and thus has no conception of evil, and consequently no conception of good (for good and evil are correlative).
—Spinoza, EIVP68
Holmes represents Spinoza’s concept of the just man in many ways. The most notable of these is Holmes’s unique ability to be unaffected by his negative human passions and maintain an almost constant level of machine-like cognitive performance. Sherlock Holmes is, and always will be a precise, calculating, objective character. Very rarely does anything he sees or observes astound him (and let’s face it, he’s seen a lot). He simply does not let his emotions get in the way of his intellectual endeavors and lives only to challenge his intellectual prowess.
Furthermore, we as the readers metaphorically gorge ourselves on Holmes’s ability to create and maintain this perpetual state of being unimpressed and unperturbed. We love him for literally sticking his nose in the air at a crime as if it is so boring, that its straightforward and uncomplicated structure has some disagreeable smell. So remarkable is it when he finds a case worthy of his abilities, miraculous as it may seem, we the readers, find ourselves excited by the unfolding mystery as if we were Holmes the man, instead of merely his readers. Of course the adventure, and the mystery that lies therein, are all too short-lived. The clues play out in an obvious way that for him is almost always far too predictable. The cycle continues and he falls back into his tall armchair and his experiments.
There’s something rather appealing in this almost inhuman attribute to rid ourselves of our emotional burdens and examine life the way Holmes would. When freed (so to speak) from the emotions that can hinder our analytical abilities we encounter a whole new world of possibilities. But can this ability to separate ourselves from being personally involved with things injure our sense of ethical and moral responsibility, not only to each other, but our community, indeed, our humanity?
This was an important question for Spinoza. Dramatically called “the most impious and the most dangerous man of the century” by one disgruntled theologian (as cited by Matthew Stewart in The Courtier and the Heretic), Spinoza’s almost pantheistic views regarding life, the universe, and well, everything else, defiantly challenged and certainly frightened the ruling classes of the seventeenth-century Netherlands. And with appreciable reason, I might add. Spinoza was two hundred years ahead of his time. This type of forward thinking has the potential to create a hero of Holmes’s stature but a villain of Moriarty’s capacity as well.
We can see that, similar to Holmes, Moriarty was an objective, abstract thinker. His objectivity, however, led him to a life of depravity and crime. Most interestingly examined in the hit television show Sherlock, Moriarty can truly be seen as Holmes’s negative image when considered under the title of the world’s first and only consulting criminal.
Hence, if we understand Holmes to be as close to as we can humanly get to Spinoza’s just man, Moriarty must be considered the negative possibilities that such a life may present. Spinoza, however, was ready for such immoral and unethical interpretations of his work. Found within his arsenal of astute logic and rationality was the ever formidable philosophy of Socrates (dramatic music please, maestro!).
Socrates argued in the Apology that when we harm others we inevitably harm ourselves, which we would never knowingly do. Spinoza, in his own way, states the same concept in Ethics.
When we follow the dictates of our conatus we are in a sense, being self serving, or more accurately, it allows us to seek our own advantage:
The more each one strives [utilizes one’s conatus], and is able, to seek his own advantage, that is to preserve his being, the more he is endowed with virtue; conversely, insofar as each one neglects his own advantage, that is neglects to preserve his being, he lacks power. (EIVP20)
According to Spinoza, the more we seek our own advantage, the more power we gain. The more power we gain through adequate ideas the more we are endowed with virtue. Thus we choose to participate in actions that positively benefit ourselves and others through the adequate ideas we possess.
To act otherwise (as our evil antagonist Moriarty does) is to act from a basis of ignorance and from inadequate ideas. Because Holmes operates from mostly adequate ideas he is considered virtuous and free. Moriarty, on the other hand, is immoral and entrapped by his passive affects.
The House that Holmes Built
Many of Conan Doyle’s stories begin with Dr. Watson praising the wit and brilliance that is Sherlock Holmes’s mind and capabilities. Indeed, though often thought narcissistic and conceited by the local authorities whom he assists, Sherlock Holmes deserves every ounce of the self-importance he feels.
And what’s more, we love him for it. There’s something about the intellectual hero that is simply engaging, especially in today’s culture. Our modern day conception of a hero now involves (more often than not) an intellectual crime solver instead of the brash cowboy of recent years. Whether Dr. Gregory House in House, Dr. Temperance Brennan in Bones, Mr. Spock in Star Trek, or Captain Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation, if you prefer, or any number of the characters found on American television shows such as CSI Miami or Criminal Minds, you’ll find that it’s the intellect instead of the brawn that saves the day.
And Sherlock Holmes just may have started it all. His cold and impassive nature makes him stand apart from the passionate few whose success rely more on good luck than anything else. I find it fascinating that this creation of nineteenth-century literary genius should follow so closely to the image that a man from the seventeenth century proposed.
I find the correlation found between Spinoza’s ethical writing and Sherlock Holmes’s sleuthing truly astounding. And it’s intriguing to see how these ideas have blossomed into the characters of our modern day protagonists. Whether considered together or separately, Spinoza and Sherlock have seemingly helped pave the metaphoric road for the modern conception of a hero.
Why? Why is this ideal of an intellectual hero so appealing to us? Why is it that we love Holmes’s unemotional objectivity or care about Spinoza’s ethical implication that such a life presents?
Holmes and Spinoza have already spelled it out for us. Utilize reason and logic when you act and do not let your emotions govern you. Get in control of your own life and your own sense of self. Avoid ignorance, create brilliance. Open yourself up to a whole new world of thinking and understanding and gain the respect (or, quite possibly, the annoyance) of those around you. With study and discipline we can become the House, or the Bones, or even the Sherlock Holmes of any field of study.
Perhaps what’s most wonderful about Sherlock Holmes and Spinoza’s just man is simply this, that they truly have no superhuman qualities to them, no magic powers beyond our own meager means. What makes them special is what we ourselves have within us. We too can become that which so astounds us.
Chapter 2
Calculating Humanity
Timothy Sexton
The first glimpse of Jeremy Brett’s Sherlock Holmes that the viewer gets in every episode of the Granada television series is that of Holmes looking down on Baker Street�
�s activities from his apartment on the second floor.
Brett turns his face slightly toward the camera with a look on his face registering a very definite emotion that is just as definitely impossible for the viewer to identify. Is he amused by what he sees out the window? Is he intrigued? He may even be bored.
It’s impossible to read his emotional register as the scene turns into a freeze-frame, but one thing is certain: this Sherlock Holmes—this one—is situated above all other humans and rather than being unconcerned or disinterested about his special status, he is quite satisfied with the nature of the relationship between him and everybody else who exists on a level below. Equality be damned; it’s all about the will to power and Holmes has the will lacking in the street urchins, bobbies, and assorted rabble below.
But more on that Sherlock Holmes later. The game is afoot and since I don’t want to make it too elementary, you will have to pay close attention to the clues.
Human, Inhuman, or Underhuman?
Man, philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche’s titular prophet in Thus Spake Zarathustra tells us, is a state of being that must be overcome. Zarathustra’s essential contention: comparing modern man to the coming Overman is like comparing a gorilla strutting back and forth in his zoo habitat to Fred Astaire dancing on the ceiling in Royal Wedding.
In Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Sign of the Four, Dr. John Watson turns to his good friend Sherlock Holmes and replies to a statement made by Holmes that he—Holmes—had not even observed that future client Mary Morstan was, and I’m paraphrasing Watson here, one stone cold fox. Watson, accustomed to Holmes’s ability to successfully construct an entire biography merely by observing the clothing a person wears, is compelled to cry out: “You really are an automaton—a calculating machine. There is something positively inhuman in you at times.”
Sherlock Holmes is inhuman, observes his close companion—who should know—Dr. Watson. Zarathustra does not say that the next evolutionary tiptoe up the ladder to perfection will be inhuman, but rather overhuman.
To Underestimate One’s Ability Is Just as Wrong as Overestimation
“He is a calculating machine, and anything you add to that simply weakens the effect.” The words are again being used to describe Sherlock Holmes. In this case, Arthur Conan Doyle is writing entirely in the guise of an author reflecting on his literary creation and he goes on to observe—and he should know—that Sherlock Holmes is just a calculating machine with no room for the addition of common literary characteristics like light or shade or nuance or complexity or, let’s finally admit it, a personality. If you go by the description of the author who created him, Sherlock Holmes can only be what your English teachers referred to as a “flat character.”
Actors for over a century appeared to pay great respect to Doyle’s assessment of the lack of style in Sherlock Holmes. Actors portrayed Sherlock Holmes as an admittedly brilliant seeker of truth and justice with little in the way of style. Whether it was the famous Basil Rathbone or the considerably less famous Alan Wheatley, actors saw in Sherlock a chance to play a character with significant cranial capacity, but not a whole heck of a lot more. Indeed, judging from most performances, apparently you can’t be both smart and fascinating. The only time that these Sherlocks even came close to being fascinating was in the scenes where Holmes is telling someone all about themselves based on their gloves or tie.
We shouldn’t blame actors for making of Sherlock Holmes something much more inhuman than overhuman. Just as Holmes proudly points out the fact that he is the creator of the job of consulting detective, so was Conan Doyle a co-creator with Edgar Allan Poe of a new literary genre known as the detective story. Today, amid well-rounded characters in the world of crime-solving, from Columbo to Ellery Queen to Monk, it’s sometimes difficult to remember that the detective is way too often the least interesting character in a story because he’s only there to solve the dang crime. It took a while for writers to learn that crimes could be solved in just as stylish a fashion as they could be committed.
You Don’t Think I Put Too Much Color and Life into It?
Watson’s exclamation includes a rejoinder that begs further study: “There is something positively inhuman in you at times.” What does it really mean to be inhuman? Most dictionaries agree: any material object that is not a human being (like an automaton) or a human being who lacks qualities such as compassion and mercy and also possesses the potential to display cruelty or act in a barbaric fashion.
Remember, this is his good friend Sherlock Holmes that Dr. Watson is talking about. Okay, maybe Doyle’s Sherlock and the Sherlock of Rathbone and the rest aren’t particularly rounded, but to suggest that their Holmes showed no compassion or mercy? That their Holmes acted barbarically? This description doesn’t seem to describe the character as written in the books nor does it seem an apt depiction of Holmes as portrayed on film.
To compare Sherlock Holmes as we know him to the Sherlock Holmes that Dr. Watson describes is like comparing Jerry Lewis’s nutty professor to Mr. Spock. A calculating machine could be used to determine the odds that a specific person committed murder by speckled band, but that machine is hardly capable of caring enough to place its own life in jeopardy in pursuit of the proving the hypothesis.
Several generations of actors portraying Sherlock Holmes as a mere calculating machine based on the literary tales of a character described by his own creator as such have conditioned fans to accept without question that Sherlock puts his brilliant mind to work solving crimes because he is interested in Truth, Justice, and the Victorian Way. That Sherlock—that one—often ploddingly goes about collecting clues which he uses as punchcards in his calculating machine of a brain to arrive at the answer to what is, after all, the central component without which no detective story can survive: whodunit? (And howdunit and whydunit in most cases.) While the Sherlock that wormed its way into public consciousness and acceptance was usually quite surprisingly unemotional about everything, including proving himself right, he wasn’t exactly what most of us would describe as inhuman.
Maybe if Dr. Watson had been a bit more imaginative, he might have searched the definition of ‘inhuman’ in his mind before speaking, have found it insanely inappropriate and coined a much more suitable word to describe what he actually meant: underhuman. Then, being as how this was the Victorian Age, he would have necessarily shortened to reflect a more honest appraisal of the gender conventions of the time. “You really are an underman—a calculating machine,” Watson might have said.
The Law Is as Dangerous to Us as the Criminals Are
Sherlock Holmes: the Underman. A calculating machine slightly less than human and an automaton who is most certainly a far cry from Nietzsche’s promises of those to come who shall be “the meaning of the Earth.” The Sherlock Holmes who exists in stories written by his creator and the overwhelming majority of cinematic adaptations is, ultimately, only another member of what Nietzsche termed the herd. He solves crimes in the pursuit of justice fostered by purely traditional notions of good and evil, right and wrong, fact and fiction.
The lack of style in this Holmes is rather astonishing. If you were Sherlock Holmes and you had just solved a crime that the police could not solve, and you had exhibited compassion and mercy by letting someone you know to be a guilty man go free, you, too, might shout out in clear, very human, frustration: “I am not retained by the police to supply their deficiencies! Maybe I am committing a felony, but I may be saving a soul.”
Here’s the way Arthur Conan Doyle describes the moment that Sherlock Holmes says those very words:
“After all, Watson,” said Holmes, reaching up his hand for his clay pipe, “I am not retained by the police to supply their deficiencies. If Horner were in danger it would be another thing; but this fellow will not appear against him, and the case must collapse. I suppose that I am committing a felony, but it is just possible that I am saving a soul. This fellow will not go wrong again; he is too terribly frightened. Send him to jail now,
and you make him a jail-bird for life.”
No exclamation points in that paragraph. Perhaps Doyle felt that emotion would weaken the effect of the coldly calculating mind playing over the odds that his decision to break the law would result in an ultimate good that playing by the rules of statutory justice could not match. Sherlock is willing to break a minor law in order to achieve what might be a cosmically greater good: saving a soul.
But where is Sherlock’s soul in that scene? In addition to banning light and shade, Arthur Conan Doyle also seems to have banished Holmes’s soul. And what’s a human without a soul? Inhuman? Unhuman? Underhuman? Certainly not overhuman.
Sherlock Holmes suggests that his action of committing a felony may result in saving a soul, but Jeremy Brett’s aristocratic dismissal of the real felon in question makes one wonder if Holmes even believes in such an illogical concept as a soul. Lacking any hint of style, the above scene from “The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle” is about little more than Sherlock Holmes matter-of-factly admitting that he regularly outsmarts the police.