The Blind Spot | Page 7

all eternity. We are it. Did you ever stop and think of
eternity? It is a rather long time. What right have we to say that life, which we assume to
be everlasting, immediately becomes restrospect once it passes out of the conscious
individuality which is allotted upon this earth? The trouble is ourselves. We are
five-sensed. We weigh everything! We so measure eternity. Until we step out into other
senses, which undoubtedly exist, we shall never arrive at the conception of infinity. Now
I am going to make a rather startling announcement.
"The past few years have promised a culmination which has been guessed at and yearned
for since the beginning of time. It is within, and still without, the scope of metaphysics.
Those of you who have attended my lectures have heard me call myself the material
idealist. I am a mystic sensationalist. I believe that we can derive nothing from pure
contemplation. There is mystery and wonder in the veil of the occult. The earth, our life,
is merely a vestibule of the universe. Contemplation alone will hold us all as inapt and as
impotent as the old Monks of Athos. We have mountains of literature behind us, all
contemplative, and whatever its wisdom, it has given us not one thing outside the abstract.
From Plato down to the present our philosophy has given us not one tangible proof, not
one concrete fact which we can place our hands on. We are virtually where we were
originally; and we can talk, talk, talk from now until the clap of doomsday.
"What then?
"My friends, philosophy must take a step sidewise. In this modern age young science,
practical science, has grown up and far surpassed us. We must go back to the beginning,
forget our subjective musings and enter the concrete. We are five-sensed, and in the
nature of things we must bring the proof down into the concrete where we can understand

it. Can we pierce the nebulous screen that shuts us out of the occult? We have doubted,
laughed at ourselves and been laughed at; but the fact remains that always we have
persisted in the believing.
"I have said that we shall never, never understand infinity while within the limitations of
our five senses. I repeat it. But that does not imply that we shall never solve some of the
mystery of life. The occult is not only a supposition, but a fact. We have peopled it with
terror, because, like our forebears before Columbus, we have peopled it with imagination.
"And now to my statement.
"I have called myself the Material Idealist. I have adopted an entirely new trend of
philosophy. During the past years, unknown to you and unknown to my friends, I have
allied myself with practical science. I desired something concrete. While my colleagues
and others were pounding out tomes of wonderful sophistry I have been pounding away
at the screen of the occult. This is a proud moment. I have succeeded. Tomorrow I shall
bring to you the fact and the substance. I have lifted up the curtain and flooded it with the
light of day. You shall have the fact for your senses. Tomorrow I shall explain it all. I
shall deliver my greatest lecture; in which my whole Me has come to a focus. It is not
spiritualism nor sophistry. It is concrete fact and common sense. The subject of my
lecture tomorrow will be: 'The Blind Spot.'"
Here begins the second part of the mystery.
We know now that the great lecture was never delivered. Immediately the news was
scattered out of the class-room. It became common property. It was spread over the
country and was featured in all the great metropolitan dailies. In the lecture- room next
morning seats were at a premium; students, professors, instructors and all the prominent
people who could gain admission crowded into the hall; even the irrepressible reporters
had stolen in to take down the greatest scoop of the century. The place was jammed until
even standing room was unthought of. The crowd, dense and packed and physically
uncomfortable, waited.
The minutes dragged by. It was a long, long wait. But at last the bell rang that ticked the
hour. Every one was expectant. And then fifteen minutes passed by, twenty--the crowd
settled down to waiting. At length one of the colleagues stepped into the doctor's office
and telephoned to his home. His daughter answered.
"Father? Why he left over two hours ago."
"About what time?"
"Why, it was about seven-thirty. You know he was to deliver his lecture today on the
Blind Spot. I wanted to hear it, but he told me I could have it at home. He said he was to
have a wonderful guest and I must make