In Chapter 1, Dr. James Mortimer uses an allusion when he describes himself as
A dabbler in science, Mr Holmes, a picker-up of shells on the shores of the great unknown ocean.
Mortimer’s statement that he is a “picker-up of shells” refers to a famous line by English physicist Sir Isaac Newton, “To myself I seem to have been only like a little boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me."
In comparing himself to Newton, Mortimer characterizes himself as a man of science and reason. Mortimer is a phrenologist; he believes a person’s characteristics can be understood through the measurement and study of the skull. Phrenology reflected a larger idea popular in Doyle’s time, a belief that science could offer solutions to life’s problems and answers to life’s mysteries. So, through the allusion to Newton, Mortimer aligns himself with this larger, late Victorian outlook on science's role in human life. It prepares readers for the fact that, through deduction, a scientific method, Holmes will solve a mystery that's initially believed to be caused by supernatural forces.
