I believe Sherlock Holmes is trying to explain
to Watson that people do not think with their heads but with their hearts most
of the time. And that is the wrong way to go about reasoning and solving cases.
You have to see the facts and read in between the lines and do not let emotions
come into play. Embellishments are false accusations about a certain story or
case, which happens when the story is transferred and told over and over to
different people or when people try and cover up something that was against the
law or wrong. Like the child game “telephone” where each person has a new input
of their choice, they try to make the story more appealing. This is what
usually happens in criminal cases such as those that Sherlock Holmes tries to
solve. We as human beings, is our nature to feel and be emotionally affected by
certain events in the world, what Sherlock Holmes does is he censors out those
feelings and strictly stays to the facts.
I like that you linked the Sherlock Holmes quote to thinking with your heart, not with your head because that is totally what relying on opinions and unsupported assumptions leads to. I agree that most people (including myself at times) reason this way even though it is the wrong way to go about it. After reading the question and the quote, the game of telephone popped in my head too! If you rely on other people to get facts to you, the ‘facts’ are bound to get twisted and you get a completely different version than the original truth you were meant to receive.
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