Holmes smiled grimly. “All men,” he replied, shortly; “and when I say all men, I mean all creatures who can reason.”
“Does that include women?” I asked.
“Certainly,” he said. “Indubitably. The fact that women don’t reason does not prove that they can’t. I can go up in a balloon if I wish to, but I don’t. I can read an American newspaper comic supplement, but I don’t. So it is with women. Women can reason, and therefore they have a right to be included in the classification whether they do or don’t.”
“Quite so,” was all I could think of to say at the moment. The extraordinary logic of the man staggered me, and I again began to believe that the famous mathematician who said that if Sherlock Holmes attempted to prove that five apples plus three peaches made four pears, he would not venture to dispute his conclusions, was wise. (This was the famous Professor Zoggenhoffer, of the Leipsic School of Moral Philosophy and Stenography.—Ed.)
“Now you agree, my dear Watson,” he said, “that I have proved that we see everything?”
“Well—” I began.
“Whether we are conscious of it or not?” he added, lighting the gas-log, for the cold was becoming intense.
“From that point of view, I suppose so—yes,” I replied, desperately.
“Well, then, this being granted, consciousness is all that is needed to make us fully informed on any point.”
“No,” I said, with some positiveness. “The American people are very conscious, but I can’t say that generally they are well-informed.”