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stance, professor?"
"That, I have not been able to discover. I would call it neutral element, for want of a more exact term; something that touches both aspects of the spectrum."
"Both aspects of the spectrum?"
"Yes; as nearly as the limitations of my vocabulary will permit. If you recall, I showed you a simple experiment the other day in the palace. By means of an inductor I drew out the iron principle from the ether and built up the metal. Only it was not precisely iron but its Thomahlian equivalent. Had you been on the earth side you would have seen nothing at all, not even myself. I was on the wrong aspect of the spectrum.
"Also, you see here the Jaradic colours--the crimson, green and blue--the shades between, the iridescence and the shadows. Had you been on the other side you wouldn't have seen one of them; they are not precisely our own colours, but their equivalents on this side of the Spot.
"In the final analysis, as I said before, it gets down to ether, to speed and vibration--and still at last to the perceptive limitations of our own earthly five senses. Just stop and consider how limited we are! Only five senses--why, even insects have six. Then consider that all matter, when we get to the bottom of it, is differentiated and condensed ether, focused into various mathematical arrangements, as numberless as the particles of the universe. Of these our five senses pick out a very small proportion indeed.
"This is one way to account for the Blind Spot. It may be merely another phase of the spectrum--not simply the unexplored regions of the infra-red or the ultra-violet, but a region co-existent with what we normally apprehend, and making itself manifest through apertures in what we, with our extremely limited sense- grasp, think to be a continuous spectrum. I throw out the idea mainly as a suggestion. It is not necessarily the true explanation.
"Let us go a bit farther. Remember, we are still upon the earth. And that we are still in San Francisco, although a