And now to start in on another angle. There is hardly any necessity for
introducing Dr. Holcomb. All of us, at least, those who read, and, most
of all, those of us who are interested in any manner of speculation,
knew him quite well. He was the professor of philosophy at the
University of California: a great man and a good one, one of those fine
academic souls who, not only by their wisdom, but by their character,
have a way of stamping themselves upon generations; a speaker of the
upstanding class, walking on his own feet and utterly fearless when it
came to dashing out on some startling philosophy that had not been borne
up by his forebears.
He was original. He believed that the philosophies of the ages are but
stepping stones, that the wisdom of the earth looked but to the future,
and that the study of the classics, however essential, is but the ground
work for combining and working out the problems of the future. He was
epigrammatic, terse, and gifted with a quaint humour, with which he
was apt, even when in the driest philosophy, to drive in and clinch his
argument.
Best of all, he was able to clothe the most abstract thoughts in
language so simple and concrete that he brought the deepest of all
subjects down to the scope of the commonest thinker. It is needless
to say that he was 'copy.' The papers about the bay were ever and anon
running some startling story of the professor.
Had they stuck to the text it would all have been well; but a reporter
is a reporter; in spite of the editors there were numerous little
elaborations to pervert the context. A great man must be careful of his
speech. Dr. Holcomb was often busy refuting; he could not understand the
need of these little twistings of wisdom. It kept him in controversy;
the brothers of his profession often took him to task for these little
distorted scraps of philosophy. He did not like journalism. He had a way
of consigning all writers and editors to the devil.
Which was vastly amusing to the reporters. Once they had him going they
poised their pens in glee and began splashing their venomous ink. It was
tragic; the great professor standing at bay to his tormentors. One and
all they loved him and one and all they took delight in his torture. It
was a hard task for a reporter to get in at a lecture; and yet it was
often the lot of the professor to find himself and his words featured in
his breakfast paper.
On the very day before this the doctor had come out with one of his
terse startling statements. He had a way of inserting parenthetically
some of his scraps of wisdom. It was in an Ethics class. We quote his
words as near as possible:
“Man, let me tell you, is egotistic. All our philosophy is based on ego.
We live threescore years and we balance it with 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 ready to receive him. Isn't father there?”
“Not yet. Who was this guest? Did he say?”
“Oh yes! In a way. A most wonderful man. And he gave him a wonderful
name, Rhamda Avec. I remember because it is so funny. I asked father if
he was Sanskrit; and he said he was much older than that. Just imagine!”
“Did your father have his lecture with him?”
“Oh, yes. He glanced over it at breakfast. He told me he was going to
startle the world as it had never been since the day of Columbus.”
“Indeed.”
“Yes. And he was terribly impatient. He said he had to be at the college
before eight to receive the great man. He was to deliver his lecture at
ten. And afterward he would have lunch at noon and he would give me the
whole story. I'm all impatience.”
“Thank you.”
Then he came back and made the announcement that there was a little
delay; but that Dr. Holcomb would be there shortly. But he was not. At
twelve o'clock there were still some people waiting. At one o'clock the
last man had slipped out of the room--and wondered. In all the country
there was but one person who knew. That one was an obscure man who had
yielded to a detective's intuition and had fallen inadvertently upon one
of the greatest mysteries of modern times.