“Like everything else in the universe it answers to a law. It has its reason—there is no such thing as chance. Do you follow? That fragment is simply a principle, allowed to manifest itself through a natural law!
“Try to follow me. All is out of the ether—all! Variety in matter is simply a question of varying degrees of electronic activity, depending upon a number of ratios. Life itself, as well as materiality and force, comes out of the all-pervading ether.
“This object here,” touching the crystal, “is merely a conductor. It picks up the ether and sends it through a set degree of vibrational activity. Result? It makes iron!
“If you wish you may go back to our twentieth century for a parallel—by which I mean, electricity. It is gathered crudely; but the time will come when it will be picked up out of the air in precisely the same manner that men pick hydrocarbons out of petroleum, or as I sift the desired quality of ether through that globe.
“This, I am convinced, is one of the fundamental secrets of the Blind Spot. Is there any question?”
Wendel managed to put one.
“You said, 'back in the twentieth century.' Is it a question of time displacement, sir?”
“Suppose we forgo that point at present. You will note, however, that the Thomahlian world is certainly far in advance of our own.”
“Professor,” asked Watson, “is it the occult?”
“Ah,” brightening; “now we are getting back to the old point. However, what is the occult?” He paused; then—“Did it ever occur to you, that the occult might prove to be the real world, proving that life we have known to be merely a shadow?”