Sherlock Holmes primarily relies on abduction: inferring an explanation for observed details. "From a drop of water", he writes, "a logician could infer the possibility of an Atlantic or a Niagara without having seen or heard of one or the other". In "A Scandal in Bohemia", Holmes infers that Watson had got wet lately and had "a most clumsy and careless servant girl". When Watson asks how Holmes knows this, the detective answers: In the first Holmes story, "A Study in Scarlet", Dr. Watson compares Holmes to C. Auguste Dupin, Edgar Allan Poe's fictional detective, who employed a similar methodology. Alluding to
Louis Ellies Dupin otherwise they are credited with a moral steadfastness which elicits sympathy and leads to their being excused". Dupin submitted, but was nevertheless condemned by the Archbishop of Paris (14 April 1696). Dupin continued his "Bibliothèque", which was put on the "Index" long after his death (10 May 1757), though other works of his were condemned at an earlier date. He was also criticized by Richard Simon, though the two had similar views and employed similar methods so that when Bossuet was writing the "Défense de la Tradition et des Saints Pères" (which did not appear, however, until 1743), he included