Sophie's World (Part 5)

Berkeley

…like a giddy planet round a burning sun…

Alberto walked over to the window facing the town. Sophie followed him. While they stood looking out at the old houses, a small plane flew in over the rooftops. Fixed to its tail was a long banner which Sophie guessed would be

advertising some product or local event, a rock concert perhaps. But as it approached and turned, she saw quite a different message: HAPPY BIRTHDAY, HILDE!

“Gate-crasher,” was Alberto’s only comment.

Heavy black clouds from the hills to the south were now beginning to gather over the town. The little plane disappeared into the grayness.

“I’m afraid there’s going to be a storm,” said Alberto. “So I’ll take the bus home.”

“I only hope the major isn’t behind this, too.” “He’s not God Almighty, is he?”

Alberto did not reply. He walked across the room and sat down again by the coffee table.

“We have to talk about Berkeley,” he said after a while.

Sophie had already resumed her place. She caught herself biting her nails. “George Berkeley was an Irish bishop who lived from 1685 to 1753,” Alberto

began. There was a long silence.

“Berkeley was an Irish bishop ...” Sophie prompted. “But he was a philosopher as well...”

“Yes?”

“He felt that current philosophies and science were a threat to the Christian way of life, that the all-pervading materialism, not least, represented a threat to the Chris- tian faith in God as creator and preserver of all nature.”

“He did?”

“And yet Berkeley was the most consistent of the empiricists.”

“He believed we cannot know any more of the world than we can perceive through the senses?”

“More than that. Berkeley claimed that worldly things are indeed as we perceive them, but they are not ‘things.’ “

“You’ll have to explain that.”

“You remember that Locke pointed out that we cannot make statements about the ‘secondary qualities’ of things. We cannot say an apple is green and sour. We can only say we perceive it as being so. But Locke also said that the ‘primary qualities’ like density, gravity, and weight really do belong to the external reality around us. External reality has, in fact, a material substance.”

“I remember that, and I think Locke’s division of things was important.” “Yes, Sophie, if only that were all.”

“Goon.”

“Locke believed—just like Descartes and Spinoza— that the material world is a reality.”

“Yes?”

“This is just what Berkeley questioned, and he did so by the logic of empiricism. He said the only things that exist are those we perceive. But we do not perceive ‘material’ or ‘matter.’ We do not perceive things as tangible objects. To assume that what we perceive has its own underlying ‘substance’ is jumping to conclusions. We have absolutely no experience on which to base such a claim.”

“How stupid. Look!” Sophie thumped her fist hard on the table. “Ouch,” she said. “Doesn’t that prove that this table is really a table, both of material and matter?”

“How did you feel it?” “I felt something hard.”

“You had a sensation of something hard, but you didn’t feel the actual matter in the table. In the same way, you can dream you are hitting something hard, but there

isn’t anything hard in a dream, is there?” “No, not in a dream.”

“A person can also be hypnotized into ‘feeling’ things like warmth and cold, a caress or a punch.”

“But if the table wasn’t really hard, why did I feel it?”

“Berkeley believed in a ‘spirit.’ He thought all our ideas have a cause beyond our consciousness, but that this cause is not of a material nature. It is spiritual.”

Sophie had started biting her nails again.

Alberto continued: “According to Berkeley, my own soul can be the cause of

my own ideas—just as when I dream—but only another will or spirit can be the cause of the ideas that make up the ‘corporeal’ world. Everything is due to that spirit which is the cause of ‘everything in everything’ and which ‘all things consist in,’ he said.”

“What ‘spirit’ was he talking about?”

“Berkeley was of course thinking of God. He said that ‘we can moreover claim that the existence of God is far more clearly perceived than the existence of man.”’

“Is it not even certain that we exist?”

“Yes, and no. Everything we see and feel is ‘an effect of God’s power,’ said Berkeley. For God is ‘intimately present in our consciousness, causing to exist for us the profusion of ideas and perceptions that we are constantly subject to.’ The whole world around us and our whole life exist in God. He is the one cause of everything that exists. We exist only in the mind of God.”

“I am amazed, to put it mildly.”

“So ‘to be or not to be’ is not the whole question. The question is also who we are. Are we really human beings of flesh and blood? Does our world consist of real things—or are we encircled by the mind?”

Sophie continued to bite her nails.

Alberto went on: “Material reality was not the only thing Berkeley was questioning. He was also questioning whether ‘time’ and ‘space’ had any absolute or independent existence. Our own perception of time and space can also be merely figments of the mind. A week or two for us need not be a week or two for God ...”

“You said that for Berkeley this spirit that everything exists in is the Christian

God.”

“Yes, I suppose I did. But for us ...” “Us?”

“For us—for you and me—this ‘will or spirit’ that is the ‘cause of everything in everything’ could be Hilde’s father.”

Sophie’s eyes opened wide with incredulity. Yet at the same time a realization began to dawn on her.

“Is that what you think?”

“I cannot see any other possibility. That is perhaps the only feasible explanation for everything that has happened to us. All those postcards and signs that have turned up here and there... Hermes beginning to talk ... my own involuntary slips of the tongue.”

“I...”

“Imagine my calling you Sophie, Hilde! I knew all the time that your name wasn’t Sophie.”

“What are you saying? Now you are definitely confused.”

“Yes, my mind is going round and round, my child. Like a giddy planet round a burning sun.”

“And that sun is Hilde’s father?”

“You could say so.”

“Are you saying he’s been a kind of God for us?”

“To be perfectly candid, yes. He should be ashamed of himself!” “What about Hilde herself?”

“She is an angel, Sophie.” “An angel?”

“Hilde is the one this ‘spirit’ turns to.”

“Are you saying that Albert Knag tells Hilde about us?”

“Or writes about us. For we cannot perceive the matter itself that our reality is made of, that much we have learned. We cannot know whether our external reality is made of sound waves or of paper and writing. According to Berkeley, all we can know is that we are spirit.”

“And Hilde is an angel...”

“Hilde is an angel, yes. Let that be the last word. Happy birthday, Hilde!” Suddenly the room was filled with a bluish light. A few seconds later they heard

the crash of thunder and the whole house shook.

“I have to go,” said Sophie. She got up and ran to the front door. As she let herself out, Hermes woke up from his nap in the hallway. She thought she heard him say, “See you later, Hilde.”

Sophie rushed down the stairs and ran out into the street. It was deserted. And now the rain came down in torrents.

One or two cars were plowing through the downpour, but there were no buses in sight. Sophie ran across Main Square and on through the town. As she ran, one

thought kept going round and round in her mind: “Tomorrow is my birthday* Isn’t it extra bitter to realize that life is only a dream on the day before your fifteenth birthday? It’s like dreaming you won a million and then just as you’re getting the money you wake up.”

Sophie ran across the squelching playing field. Minutes later she saw someone come running toward her. It was her mother. The sky was pierced again and again by angry darts of lightning.

When they reached each other Sophie’s mother put her arm around her. “What’s happening to us, little one?”

“I don’t know,” Sophie sobbed. “It’s like a bad dream.”

Bjerkely

…an old magic mirror Great-grandmother had bought from a Gypsy woman ...

Hilde Moller Knag awoke in the attic room in the old captain’s house outside Lillesand. She glanced at the clock. It was only six o’clock, but it was already light. Broad rays of morning sun lit up the room.

She got out of bed and went to the window. On the way she stopped by the desk and tore a page off her calendar. Thursday, June 14, 1990. She crumpled the page up and threw it in her wastebasket.

Friday, June 15, 1990, said the calendar now, shining at her. Way back in January she had written “15th birthday” on this page. She felt it was extra-special to be fifteen on the fifteenth. It would never happen again.

Fifteen! Wasn’t this the first day of her adult life? She couldn’t just go back to bed. Furthermore, it was the last day of school before the summer vacation. The students just had to appear in church at one o’clock. And what was more, in a week Dad would be home from Lebanon. He had promised to be home for Midsummer

Eve.

Hilde stood by the window and looked out over the garden, down toward the

dock behind the little red boat-house. The motorboat had not yet been brought out for the summer, but the old rowboat was tied up to the dock. She must remember to bail the water out of it after last night’s heavy downpour.

As she was looking out over the little bay, she remembered the time when as a little girl of six she had climbed up into the rowboat and rowed out into the bay alone. She had fallen overboard and it was all she could do to struggle ashore. Drenched to the skin, she had pushed her way through the thicket hedge. As she stood in the

garden looking up at the house, her mother had come running toward her. The boat and both oars were left afloat in the bay. She still dreamed about the boat sometimes, drifting on its own, abandoned. It had been an embarrassing experience.

The garden was neither especially luxuriant nor particularly well kept. But it

was large and it was Hilde’s. A weather-beaten apple tree and a few practically barren fruit bushes had just about survived the severe winter storms. The old glider stood on the lawn between granite rocks and thicket. It looked so forlorn in the sharp morning light. Even more so because the cushions had been taken in. Mom had probably hurried out late last night and rescued them from the rain.

There were birch trees—bj0rketreer—all around the large garden, sheltering it partly, at least, from the worst squalls. It was because of those trees that the house had been renamed Bjerkely over a hundred years ago.

Hilde’s great-grandfather had built the house some years before the turn of the century. He had been a captain on one of the last tall sailing ships. There were a lot of people who continued to call it the captain’s house.

That morning the garden still showed signs of the heavy rain that had suddenly started late last evening. Hilde had been awakened several times by bursts of thunder. But today there was not a cloud in the sky.

Everything is so fresh after a summer storm like that. It had been hot and dry for several weeks and the tips of the leaves on the birch trees had started to turn yellow. Now it was as if the whole world had been newly washed. It seemed as if even her childhood had been washed away with the storm.

“Indeed, there is pain when spring buds burst...” Wasn’t there a Swedish poet who had said something like that? Or was she Finnish?

Hilde stood in front of the heavy brass mirror hanging on the wall above

Grandmother’s old dresser.

Was she pretty? She wasn’t ugly, anyway. Maybe she was kind of in-between ... She had long, fair hair. Hilde had always wished her hair could be either a bit

fairer or a bit darker. This in-between color was so mousy. On the positive side, there were these soft curls. Lots of her friends struggled to get their hair to curl just a little bit, but Hilde’s hair had always been naturally curly. Another positive feature, she thought, were her deep green eyes. “Are they really green?” her aunts and uncles used to say as they bent over to look at her.

Hilde considered whether the image she was studying was that of a girl or that

of a young woman. She decided it was neither. The body might be quite womanly, but the face reminded her of an unripe apple.

There was something about this old mirror that always made Hilde think of her father. It had once hung down in the “studio.” The studio, over the boathouse, was her father’s combined library, writer’s workshop, and retreat. Albert, as Hilde called him when he was home, had always wanted to write something significant. Once he had tried to write a novel, but he never finished it. From time to time he had had a few

poems and sketches of the archipelago published in a national journal. Hilde was so proud every time she saw his name in print. ALBERT KNAG. It meant something in Lillesan^, anyway. Her great-grandfather’s name had also been Albert.

The mirror. Many years ago her father had joked about not being able to wink at your own reflection with both eyes at the same time, except in this brass mirror. It was an exception because it was an old magic mirror Great-grandmother had bought from

a Gypsy woman just after her wedding.

Hilde had tried for ages, but it was just as hard to wink at yourself with both eyes as to run away from your own shadow. In the end she had been given the old family heirloom to keep. Through the years she had tried from time to time to master the impossible art.

Not surprisingly, she was pensive today. And not unnaturally, she was preoccupied with herself. Fifteen years old ...

She happened to glance at her bedside table. There was a large package there. It had pretty blue wrapping and was tied with a red silk ribbon. It must be a birthday present!

Could this be the present? The great big present from Dad that had been so very secret? He had dropped so many cryptic hints in his cards from Lebanon. But he had “imposed a severe censorship on himself.”

The present was something that “grew bigger and bigger,” he had written. Then he had said something about a girl she was soon to meet—and that he had sent copies of all his cards to her. Hilde had tried to pump her mother for clues, but she had no idea what he meant, either.

The oddest hint had been that the present could perhaps be “shared with other people.” He wasn’t working for the UN for nothing! If her father had one bee in his bonnet—and he had plenty—it was that the. UN ought to be a kind of world government. May the UN one day really be able to unite the whole of humanity, he had written on one of his cards.

Was she allowed to open the package before her mother came up to her room singing “Happy Birthday to You,” with pastry and a Norwegian flag? Surely that was why it had been put there?

She walked quietly across the room and picked up the package. It was heavy! She found the tag: To Hilde on her 15th birthday from Dad.

She sat on the bed and carefully untied the red silk ribbon. Then she undid the blue paper.

It was a large ring binder.

Was this her present? Was this the fifteenth-birthday present that there had been so much fuss about? The present that grew bigger and bigger and could be shared

with other people?

A quick glance showed that the ring binder was rilled with typewritten pages. Hilde recognized them as being from her father’s typewriter, the one he had taken with him to Lebanon.

Had he written a whole book for her?

On the first page, in large handwritten letters, was the title, SOPHIE’S WORLD.

Farther down the page there were two typewritten lines of poetry:

TRUE ENLIGHTENMENT IS TO MAN LIKE SUNLIGHT TO THE SOIL

—N.F.S. Grundtvig

Hilde turned to the next page, to the beginning of the first chapter. It was

entitled “The Garden of Eden.” She got into bed, sat up comfortably, resting the ring binder against her knees, and began to read.

Sophie Amundsen was on her way home from school. She had walked the first part of the way with Joanna. They had been discussing robots.

Joanna thought the human brain was like an advanced computer. Sophie was not certain she agreed. Surely a person was more than a piece of hardware? Hilde read on, oblivious of all else, even forgetting that it was her birthday.

From time to time a brief thought crept in between the lines as she read: Had Dad written a book? Had he finally begun on the significant novel and completed it in Lebanon? He had often complained that time hung heavily on one’s hands in that part of the world.

Sophie’s father was far from home, too. She was probably the girl Hilde would be getting to know ...

Only by conjuring up an intense feeling of one day being dead could she appreciate how terribly good life was... . Where does the world come from? ... At some point something must have come from nothing. But was that possible? Wasn’t that just as impossible as the idea that the world had always existed?

Hilde read on and on. With surprise, she read about Sophie Amundsen receiving a postcard from Lebanon: “Hilde Moller Knag, c/o Sophie Amundsen, 3 Clover Close...”

Dear Hilde, Happy 15th birthday. As I’m sure you’ll understand, I want to give you a present that will help you grow. Forgive me for sending the card c/o Sophie. It was the easiest way. Love from Dad.

The joker! Hilde knew her father had always been a sly one, but today he had really taken her by surprise! Instead of tying the card on the package, he had written it into the book.

But poor Sophie! She must have been totally confused!

Why would a father send a birthday card to Sophie’s address when it was quite obviously intended to go somewhere else? What kind of father would cheat his own daughter of a birthday card by purposely sending it astray? How could it be “the easiest way”? And above all, how was she supposed to trace this Hilde person?

No, how could she?

Hilde turned a couple of pages and began to read the second chapter, “The Top Hat.” She soon came to the long letter which a mysterious person had written to So- phie.

Being interested in why we are here is not a “casual” interest like collecting stamps. People who ask such questions are taking part in a debate that has gone on as long as man has lived on this planet.

“Sophie was completely exhausted.” So was Hilde. Not only had Dad written a book for her fifteenth birthday, he had written a strange and wonderful book.

To summarize briefly: A white rabbit is pulled out of a top hat. Because it is an extremely large rabbit, the trick takes many billions of years. All mortals are born at the very tip of the rabbit’s fine hairs, where they are in a position to wonder at the impossibility of the trick. But as they grow older they work themselves ever deeper into the fur. And there they stay . . .

Sophie was not the only one who felt she had been on the point of finding herself a comfortable place deep down in the rabbit’s fur. Today was Hilde’s fifteenth birthday, and she had the feeling it was time to decide which way she would choose to

crawl.

She read about the Greek natural philosophers. Hilde knew that her father was interested in philosophy. He had written an article in the newspaper proposing that philosophy should be a regular school subject. It was called “Why should philosophy be part of the school curriculum?” He had even raised the issue at a PTA meeting in Hilde’s class. Hilde had found it acutely embarrassing.

She looked at the clock. It was seven-thirty. It would probably be half an hour before her mother came up with the breakfast tray, thank goodness, because right now she was engrossed in Sophie and all the philosophical questions. She read the chapter called “Democritus.” First of all, Sophie got a question to think about: Why is Lego the most ingenious toy in the world? Then she found a large brown envelope in the mailbox:

Democritus agreed with his predecessors that transformations in nature could not be due to the fact that anything actually “changed.” He therefore assumed that everything was built up of tiny invisible blocks, each of which was eternal and immutable. Democritus called these smallest units atoms.

Hilde was indignant when Sophie found the red silk scarf under her bed. So that was where it was! But how could a scarf just disappear into a story? It had to be someplace...

The chapter on Socrates began with Sophie reading “something about the Norwegian UN battalion in Lebanon” in the newspaper. Typical Dad! He was so con- cerned that people in Norway were not interested enough in the UN forces’ peacekeeping task. If nobody else was, then Sophie would have to be. In that way he could write it into his story and get some sort of attention from the media.

She had to smile as she read the P.P.S. in the philosophy teacher’s letter to

Sophie:

If you should come across a red silk scarf anywhere, please take care of it. Sometimes personal property gets mixed up. Especially at school and places like that, and this is a philosophy school.

Hilde heard her mother’s footsteps on the stairs. Before she knocked on the

door, Hilde had begun to read about Sophie’s discovery of the video of Athens in her secret den.

“Happy birthday ...” Her mother had begun to sing halfway up the stairs. “Come in,” said Hilde, in the middle of the passage where the philosophy

teacher was talking directly to Sophie from the Acropolis. He looked almost exactly like Hilde’s father—with a “black, well-trimmed beard” and a blue beret.

“Happy birthday, Hilde!” “Uh-huh.”

“Hilde?”

“Just put it there.”

“Aren’t you going to ... ?” “You can see I’m reading.” “Imagine, you’re fifteen!”

“Have you ever been to Athens, Mom?” “No, why do you ask?”

“It’s so amazing that those old temples are still standing. They are actually

2,500 years old. The biggest one is called the Virgin’s Place, by the way.” “Have you opened your present from Dad?”

“What present?”

“You must look up now, Hilde. You’re in a complete daze.”

Hilde let the large ring binder slide down onto her lap.

Her mother stood leaning over the bed with the tray. On it were lighted candles, buttered rolls with shrimp salad, and a soda. There was also a small package. Her mother stood awkwardly holding the tray with both hands, with a flag under one arm.

“Oh, thanks a lot, Mom. It’s sweet of you, but I’m really busy.” “You don’t have to go to school till one o’clock.”

Not until now did Hilde remember where she was, and her mother put the tray down on the bedside table.

“Sorry, Mom. I was completely absorbed in this.”

“What is it he has written, Hilde? I’ve been just as mystified as you. It’s been impossible to get a sensible word out of him for months.”

For some reason Hilde felt embarrassed. “Oh, it’s just a story.” “A story?”

“Yes, a story. And a history of philosophy. Or something like that.” “Aren’t you going to open the package from me?”

Hilde didn’t want to be unfair, so she opened her mother’s present right away. It was a gold bracelet.

“It’s lovely, Mom! Thank you very much!” Hilde got out of bed and gave her mother a hug. They sat talking for a while.

Then Hilde said, “I have to get back to the book, Mom. Right now he’s standing on top of the Acropolis.”

“Who is?”

“I’ve no idea. Neither has Sophie. That’s the whole point.”

“Well, I have to get to work. Don’t forget to eat something. Your dress is on a hanger downstairs.”

Finally her mother disappeared down the stairs. So did Sophie’s philosophy teacher; he walked down the steps from the Acropolis and stood on the Areopagos rock before appearing a little later in the old square of Athens.

Hilde shivered when the old buildings suddenly rose from the ruins. One of her father’s pet ideas had been to let all the United Nations countries collaborate in re- constructing an exact copy of the Athenian square. It would be the forum for philosophical discussion and also for disarmament talks. He felt that a giant project like that would forge world unity. “We have, after all, succeeded in building oil rigs and moon rockets.”

Then she read about Plato. “The soul yearns to fly home on the wings of love to the world of ideas. It longs to be freed from the chains of the body ...”

Sophie had crawled through the hedge and followed Hermes, but the dog had escaped her. After having read about Plato, she had gone farther into the woods and come upon the red cabin by the little lake. Inside hung a painting of Bjerkely. From the description it was clearly meant to be Hilde’s Bjerkely. But there was also a portrait of a man named Berkeley. “How odd!”

Hilde laid the heavy ring binder aside on the bed and went over to her bookshelf and looked him up in the three-volume encyclopedia she had been given on her fourteenth birthday. Here he was—Berkeley!

Berkeley, George, 1685-1753, Eng. Philos., Bishop of Cloyne. Denied existence of a material world beyond the human mind. Our sense perceptions proceed from

God. Main work: A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge (1710).

Yes, it was decidedly odd. Hilde stood thinking for a few seconds before going back to bed and the ring binder.

In one way, it was her father who had hung the two pictures on the wall. Could there be any connection other than the similarity of names?

Berkeley was a philosopher who denied the existence of a material world

beyond the human mind. That was certainly very strange, one had to admit. But it was not easy to disprove such claims, either. As regards Sophie, it fitted very well. After all, Hilde’s father was responsible for her “sense perceptions.”

Well, she would know more if she read on. Hilde looked up from the ring

binder and smiled when she got to the point where Sophie discovers the reflection of a girl who winks with both eyes. “The other girl had winked at Sophie as if to say: I can see you, Sophie. I am here, on the other side.”

Sophie finds the green wallet in the cabin as well— with the money and everything! How could it have made its way there?

Absurd! For a second or two Hilde had really believed that Sophie had found it. But then she tried to imagine how the whole thing must appear to Sophie. It must all seem quite inscrutable and uncanny.

For the first time Hilde felt a strong desire to meet Sophie face to face. She felt like telling her the real truth about the whole business.

But now Sophie had to get out of the cabin before she was caught red-handed. The boat was adrift on the lake, of course. (Her father couldn’t resist reminding her of that old story, could he!)

Hilde gulped a mouthful of soda and took a bite of her roll while she read the letter about the “meticulous” Aristotle, who had criticized Plato’s theories.

Aristotle pointed out that nothing exists in consciousness that has not first been experienced by the senses. Plato would have said that there is nothing in the natural world that has not first existed in the world of ideas. Aristotle held that Plato was thus “doubling the number of things.”

Hilde had not known that it was Aristotle who had invented the game of

“animal, vegetable, or mineral.”

Aristotle wanted to do a thorough clearing up in nature’s “room.” He tried to show that everything in nature belongs to different categories and subcategories.

When she read about Aristotle’s view of women she was both irritated and disappointed. Imagine being such a brilliant philosopher and yet such a crass idiot!

Aristotle had inspired Sophie to clean up her own room. And there, together with all the other stuff, she found the white stocking which had disappeared from Hilde’s closet a month ago! Sophie put all the pages she had gotten from Alberto into a ring binder. “There were in all over fifty pages.” For her own part, Hilde had gotten up to page 124, but then she also had Sophie’s story on top of all the correspondence from Alberto Knox.

The next chapter was called “Hellenism.” First of all, Sophie finds a postcard with a picture of a UN jeep. It is stamped UN Battalion, June 15. Another of these “cards” to Hilde that her father had put into the story instead of sending by mail.

Dear Hilde, I assume you are still celebrating your fifteenth birthday. Or is this the morning after? Anyway, it makes no difference to your present. In a sense, that will last a lifetime. But I’d like to wish you a happy birthday one more time. Perhaps you understand now why I send the cards to Sophie. I am sure she will pass them on to you.

P.S. Mom said you had lost your wallet. I hereby promise to reimburse you the 150 crowns. You will probably be able to get another school I.D. before they close for the summer vacation. Love from Dad.

Not bad! That made her 150 crowns richer. He probably thought a homemade present alone wasn’t enough.

So it appeared that June 15 was Sophie’s birthday, too. But Sophie’s calendar had only gotten as far as the middle of May. That must have been when her father had written this chapter, and he had postdated the “birthday card” to Hilde. But poor Sophie, running down to the supermarket to meet Joanna.

Who was Hilde? How could her father as good as take it for granted that Sophie would find her? In any case, it was senseless of him to send Sophie the cards instead of sending them directly to his daughter.

Hilde, like Sophie, was elevated to the celestial spheres as she read about

Plotinus.

I believe there is something of the divine mystery in everything that exists. We can see it sparkle in a sunflower or a poppy. We sense more of the unfathomable mystery in a butterfly that flutters from a twig— or in a goldfish swimming in a bowl. But we are closest to God in our own soul. Only there

can we become one with the greatest mystery of life. In truth, at very rare moments we can experience that we ourselves are that divine mystery.

This was the most giddying passage Hilde had read up to now. But it was nevertheless the simplest. Everything is one, and this “one” is a divine mystery that everyone shares.

This was not really something you needed to believe. It is so, thought Hilde. So everyone can read what they like into the word “divine.”

She turned quickly to the next chapter. Sophie and Joanna go camping the night before the national holiday on May 17. They make their way to the major’s cabin...

Hilde had not read many pages before she flung the bedclothes angrily aside, got up, and began to walk up and down, clutching the ring binder in her hands.

This was just about the most impudent trick she had ever heard of. In that little hut in the woods, her father lets these two girls find copies of all the cards he had sent Hilde in the first two weeks of May. And the copies were real enough. Hilde had read the very same words over and over. She recognized every single word.

Dear Hilde, I am now so bursting with all these secrets for your birthday that I have to stop myself several times a day from calling home and blowing the whole thing. It is something that simply grows and grows. And as you know, when a thing gets bigger and bigger it’s more difficult to keep it to yourself. . .

Sophie gets a new lesson from Alberto. It’s all about Jews and Greeks and the

two great cultures. Hilde liked getting this wide bird’s-eye view of history. She had never learned anything like it at school. They only gave you details and more details. She now saw Jesus and Christianity in a completely new light.

She liked the quote from Goethe: “He who cannot draw on three thousand years is living from hand to mouth.”

The next chapter began with a piece of card which sticks to Sophie’s kitchen window. It is a new birthday card for Hilde, of course.

Dear Hilde, I don’t know whether it will still be your birthday when you read this card. I hope so, in a way; or at least that not too many days have gone by. A week or two for Sophie does not have to mean just as long for us. I shall be coming home for Midsummer Eve, so we can sit together for hours

in the glider, looking out over the sea, Hilde. We have so much to talk about. .

.

Then Alberto calls Sophie, and this is the first time she hears his voice.

“You make it sound like a war.”

“I would rather call it a battle of wills. We have to attract Hilde’s attention and get her over on our side before her father comes home to Lillesand.”

And then Sophie meets Alberto Knox disguised as a medieval monk in the twelfth-century stone church.

Oh, no, the church! Hilde looked at the time. A quarter past one ... She had forgotten all about the time.

Maybe it wouldn’t matter so much that she cut school on her birthday. But it did mean that her classmates wouldn’t be celebrating with her. Oh well, she had always had plenty of well-wishers.

Soon she found herself receiving a long sermon. Alberto had no problem slipping into the role of a medieval priest.

When she read about how Sophia had appeared to Hildegard in visions, she turned once again to her encyclopedia. But this time she found nothing about either of them. Wasn’t that typical! As soon as it was a question of women or something to do with women, the encyclopedia was about as informative as a moon crater. Was the whole work censored by the Society for the Protection of Men?

Hildegard of Bingen was a preacher, a writer, a doctor, a botanist, and a biologist. She was “perhaps an example of the fact that women were often more prac- tical, more scientific even, in the Middle Ages.”

But there was not a single word about her in the encyclopedia. How scandalous! Hilde had never heard that God had a “female side” or a “mother nature.” Her

name was Sophia, apparently—but she was apparently not worth printer’s ink, either.

The nearest she could find in the encyclopedia was an entry about the Santa Sophia Church in Constantinople (now Istanbul), named Hagia Sophia, which means Sacred Wisdom. But there was nothing about it being female. That was censorship, wasn’t it?

Otherwise, it was true enough that Sophie had revealed herself to Hilde. She was picturing the girl with the straight hair all the time ...

When Sophie gets home after spending most of the morning in St. Mary’s Church, she stands in front of the brass mirror she took home from the cabin in the woods.

She studied the sharp contours of her own pale face framed by that impossible hair which defied any style but nature’s own. But beyond that face was the apparition of another girl.

Suddenly the other girl began to wink frantically with both eyes, as if to signal that she was really in there on the other side. The apparition lasted only a few seconds. Then she was gone.

How many times had Hilde stood in front of the mirror like that as if she was searching for someone else behind the glass? But how could her father have known that?

Wasn’t it also a dark-haired woman she had been searching for? Great- grandmother had bought it from a Gypsy woman, hadn’t she? Hilde felt her hands shaking as they held the book. She had the feeling that Sophie really existed somewhere “on the other side.”

Now Sophie is dreaming about Hilde and Bjerkely. Hilde can neither see nor hear her, but then—Sophie finds Hilde’s gold crucifix on the dock. And the crucifix— with Hilde’s initials and everything—is in Sophie’s bed when she wakes after her dream!

Hilde forced herself to think hard. Surely she hadn’t lost her crucifix as well?

She went to her dresser and took out her jewelry case. The crucifix, which she had received as a christening gift from her grandmother, was not there!

So she really had lost it. All right, but how had her father known it when she didn’t even know it herself?

And another thing: Sophie had apparently dreamed that Hilde’s father came home from Lebanon. But there was still a week to go before that happened. Was So- phie’s dream prophetic? Did her father mean that when he came home Sophie would somehow be there? He had written that she would get a new friend ...

In a momentary vision of absolute clarity Hilde knew that Sophie was more than just paper and ink. She really existed.

The Enlightenent

...from the way needles are made to the way cannons are founded…

Hilde had just begun the chapter on the Renaissance when she heard her mother come in the front door. She looked at the clock. It was four in the afternoon.

Her mother ran upstairs and opened Hilde’s door. “Didn’t you go to the church?”

“Yes, I did.”

“But... what did you wear?” “What I’m wearing now.” “Your nightgown?”

“It’s an old stone church from the Middle Ages.” “Hilde!”

She let the ring binder fall into her lap and looked up at her mother.

“I forgot the time, Mom. I’m sorry, but I’m reading something terribly exciting.”

Her mother could not help smiling. “It’s a magic book,” added Hilde.

“Okay. Happy birthday once again, Hilde!”

“Hey, I don’t know if I can take that phrase any more.”

“But I haven’t... I’m just going to rest for a while, then I’ll start fixing a great dinner. I managed to get hold of some strawberries.”

“Okay, I’ll go on reading.”

Her mother left and Hilde read on.

Sophie is following Hermes through the town. In Alberto’s hall she finds another card from Lebanon. This, too, is dated June 15.

Hilde was just beginning to understand the system of the dates. The cards dated before June 15 are copies of cards Hilde had already received from her dad. But those with today’s date are reaching her for the first time via the ring binder.

Dear Hilde, Now Sophie is coming to the philosopher’s house. She will soon be fifteen, but you were fifteen yesterday. Or is it today, Hilde? If it is today, it must be late, then. But our watches do not always agree . . .

Hilde read how Alberto told Sophie about the Renaissance and the new science, the seventeenth-century rationalists and British empiricism.

She jumped at every new card and birthday greeting that her father had stuck into the story. He got them to fall out of an exercise book, turn up inside a banana skin, and hide inside a computer program. Without the slightest effort, he could get Alberto to make a slip of the tongue and call Sophie Hilde. On top of everything else, he got Hermes to say “Happy birthday, Hilde!”

Hilde agreed with Alberto that he was going a bit too far, comparing himself with God and Providence. But whom was she actually agreeing with? Wasn’t it her father who put those reproachful—or self-reproachful—words in Alberto’s mouth? She decided that the comparison with God was not so crazy after all. Her father really was like an almighty God for Sophie’s world.

When Alberto got to Berkeley, Hilde was at least as enthralled as Sophie had been. What would happen now? There had been all kinds of hints that something special was going to happen as soon as they got to that philosopher—who had denied the existence of a material world outside human consciousness.

The chapter begins with Alberto and Sophie standing at the window, seeing the little plane with the long Happy Birthday streamer waving behind it. At the same time dark clouds begin to gather over the town.

“So ‘to be or not to be’ is not the whole question. The question is also who we are. Are we really human beings of flesh and blood? Does our world consist of real things—or are we encircled by the mind?”

Not so surprising that Sophie starts biting her nails. Nail-biting had never been one of Hilde’s bad habits but she didn’t feel particularly pleased with herself right now. Then finally it was all out in the open: “For us— for you and me—this ‘will or spirit’ that is the ‘cause of everything in everything’ could be Hilde’s father.”

“Are you saying he’s been a kind of God for us?”

“To   be   perfectly  candid, yes.He should  be ashamed of himself!” “What about Hilde herself?”

“She is an angel, Sophie.” “An angel?”

“Hilde is the one this ‘spirit’ turns to.”

With that, Sophie tears herself away from Alberto and runs out into the storm. Could it be the same storm that raged over Bjerkely last night—a few hours after Sophie ran through the town?

As she ran, one thought kept going round and round in her mind: “Tomorrow is my birthday*. Isn’t it extra bitter to realize that life is only a dream on the day before your fifteenth birthday? It’s like dreaming you won a million and then just as you’re getting the money you wake up.”

Sophie ran across the squelching playing field. Minutes later she saw someone come running toward her. It was her mother. The sky was pierced again and again by angry darts of lightning.

When they reached each other Sophie’s mother put her arm around her. “What’s happening to us, little one?”

“I don’t know,” Sophie sobbed. “It’s like a bad dream.”

Hilde felt the tears start. “To be or not to be—that is the question.” She threw the ring binder to the end of the bed and stood up. She walked back and forth across the floor. At last she stopped in front of the brass mirror, where she remained until her mother came to say dinner was ready. When Hilde heard the knock on the door, she had no idea how long she had been standing there.

But she was sure, she was perfectly sure, that her reflection had winked with both eyes.

She tried to be the grateful birthday girl all through dinner. But her thoughts were with Sophie and Alberto all the time.

How would things go for them now that they knew it was Hilda’s father who

decided everything? Although “knew” was perhaps an exaggeration. It was nonsense to think they knew anything at all. Wasn’t it only her father who let them know things?

Still, the problem was the same however you looked at it. As soon as Sophie and Alberto “knew” how everything hung together, they were in a way at the end of the road.

She almost choked on a mouthful of food as she suddenly realized that the same problem possibly applied to her own world too. People had progressed steadily in

their understanding of natural laws. Could history simply continue to all eternity once the last piece of the jigsaw puzzle of philosophy and science had fallen into place? Wasn’t there a connection between the development of ideas and science on the one hand, and the greenhouse effect and deforestation on the other? Maybe it was not so crazy to call man’s thirst for knowledge a fall from grace?

The question was so huge and so terrifying that Hilde tried to forget it again.

She would probably understand much more as she read further in her father’s birthday book.

“Happy birthday to you ...,” sang her mother when they were done with their ice cream and Italian strawberries. “Now we’ll do whatever you choose.”

“I know it sounds a bit crazy, but all I want to do is read my present from Dad.” “Well, as long as he doesn’t make you completely delirious.”

“No way.”

“We could share a pizza while we watch that mystery on TV.” “Yes, if you like.”

Hilde suddenly thought of the way Sophie spoke to her mother. Dad had hopefully not written any of Hilde’s mother into the character of the other mother? Just to make sure, she decided not to mention the white rabbit being pulled out of the top hat. Not today, at least.

“By the way,” she said as she was leaving the table. “What?”

“I can’t find my gold crucifix anywhere.”

Her mother looked at her with an enigmatic expression.

“I found it down by the dock weeks ago. You must have dropped it, you untidy scamp.”

“Did you mention it to Dad?”

“Let me think ... yes, I believe I may have.” “Where is it then?”

Her mother got up and went to get her own jewelry case. Hilde heard a little cry of surprise from the bedroom. She came quickly back into the living room.

“Right now I can’t seem to find it.” “I thought as much.”

She gave her mother a hug and ran upstairs to her room. At last—now she could read on about Sophie and Alberto. She sat up on the bed as before with the heavy ring binder resting against her knees and began the next chapter.

Sophie woke up the next morning when her mother came into the room carrying a tray loaded with birthday presents. She had stuck a flag in an empty soda bottle.

“Happy birthday, Sophie!”

Sophie rubbed the sleep from her eyes. She tried to remember what had happened the night before. But it was all like jumbled pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. One of the pieces was Alberto, another was Hilde and the major. A

third was Berkeley, a fourth Bjerkely. The blackest piece of all was the violent storm. She had practically been in shock. Her mother had rubbed her dry with a towel and simply put her to bed with a cup of hot milk and honey. She had fallen asleep immediately.

“I think I’m still alive,” she said weakly.

“Of course you’re alive! And today you are fifteen years old.” “Are you quite sure?”

“Quite sure. Shouldn’t a mother know when her only child was born? June 15, 1975 ... and half-past one, Sophie. It was the happiest moment of my life.”

“Are you sure it isn’t all only a dream?”

“It must be a good dream to wake up to rolls and soda and birthday presents.”

She put the tray of presents on a chair and disappeared out of the room for a second. When she came back she was carrying another tray with rolls and soda. She put it on the end of the bed.

It was the signal for the traditional birthday morning ritual, with the unpacking of presents and her mother’s sentimental flights back to her first contractions fifteen years ago. Her mother’s present was a tennis racket. So- phie had never played tennis, but there were some open-air courts a few minutes from Clover Close. Her father had sent her a mini-TV and FM radio. The screen was no bigger than an ordinary photograph. There were also presents from old aunts and friends of the family.

Presently her mother said, “Do you think I should stay home from work today?”

“No, why should you?”

“You were very upset yesterday. If it goes on, I think we should make an appointment to see a psychiatrist.”

“That won’t be necessary.”

“Was it the storm—or was it Alberto?”

“What about you? You said: What’s happening to us, little one?”

“I was thinking of you running around town to meet some mysterious person ... Maybe it’s my fault.”

“It’s not anybody’s ‘fault’ that I’m taking a course in philosophy in my leisure time. Just go to work. School doesn’t start till ten, and we’re only getting our grades and sitting around.”

“Do you know what you’re going to get?” “More than I got last semester at any rate.”

Not long after her mother had gone the telephone rang. “Sophie Amundsen.”

“This is Alberto.” “Ah.”

“The major didn’t spare any ammunition last night.” “What do you mean.”

“The thunderstorm, Sophie.” “I don’t know what to think.”

“That is the finest virtue a genuine philosopher can have. I am proud of how much you have learned in such a short time.”

“I am scared that nothing is real.”

“That’s called existential angst, or dread, and is as a rule only a stage on the way to new consciousness.”

“I think I need a break from the course.”

“Are there that many frogs in the garden at the moment?”

Sophie started to laugh. Alberto continued: “I think it would be better to persevere. Happy birthday, by the way. We must complete the course by Midsummer Eve. It’s our last chance.”

“Our last chance for what?”

“Are you sitting comfortably? We’re going to have to spend some time on this, you understand.”

“I’m sitting down.”

“You remember Descartes?” “I think, therefore I am?”

“With regard to our own methodical doubt, we are right now starting from scratch. We don’t even know whether we think. It may turn out that we are thoughts, and that is quite different from thinking. We have good reason to believe that we have merely been invented by Hilde’s father as a kind of birthday diversion for the major’s daughter from Lillesand. Do you see?”

“Yes . . .”

“But therein also lies a built-in contradiction. If we are fictive, we have no right to ‘believe’ anything at all. In which case this whole telephone conversation is purely imaginary.”

“And we haven’t the tiniest bit of free will because it’s the major who plans everything we say and do. So we can just as well hang up now.”

“No, now you’re oversimplifying things.” “Explain it, then.”

“Would you claim that people plan everything they dream? It may be that Hilde’s father knows everything we do. It may be just as difficult to escape his omniscience as it is to run away from your own shadow. However— and this

is where I have begun to devise a plan—it is not certain that the major has already decided on everything that is to happen. He may not decide before the very last minute—that is to say, in the moment of creation. Precisely at such moments we may possibly have an initiative of our own which guides what we say and do. Such an initiative would naturally constitute extremely weak impulses compared to the major’s heavy artillery. We are very likely defenseless against intrusive external forces such as talking dogs, messages in bananas, and thunderstorms booked in advance. But we cannot rule out our stubbornness, however weak it may be.”

“How could that be possible?”

“The major naturally knows everything about our little world, but that doesn’t mean he is all powerful. At any rate we must try to live as if he is not.”

“I think I see where you’re going with this.”

“The trick would be if we could manage to do something all on our own—something the major would not be able to discover.”

“How can we do that if we don’t even exist?”

“Who said we don’t exist? The question is not whether we are, but what we are and who we are. Even if it turns out that we are merely impulses in the major’s dual personality, that need not take our little bit of existence away

from us.”

“Or our free will?”

“I’m working on it, Sophie.”

“But Hilde’s father must be fully aware that you are working on it.” “Decidedly so. But he doesn’t know what the actual plan is. I am

attempting to find an Archimedian point.” “An Archimedian point?”

“Archimedes was a Greek scientist who said ‘Give me a firm point on which to stand and I will move the earth.’ That’s the kind of point we must find to move ourselves out of the major’s inner universe.”

“That would be quite a feat.”

“But we won’t manage to slip away before we have finished the philosophy course. While that lasts he has much too firm a grip on us. He has clearly decided that I am to guide you through the centuries right up to our own time. But we only have a few days left before he boards a plane somewhere down in the Middle East. If we haven’t succeeded in detaching ourselves from his gluey imagination before he arrives at Bjerkely, we are done for.”

“You’re frightening me!”

“First of all I shall give you the most important facts about the French Enlightenment. Then we shall take the main outline of Kant’s philosophy so that we can get to Romanticism. Hegel will also be a significant part of the picture for us. And in talking about him we will unavoidably touch on Kierkegaard’s indignant clash with Hegelian philosophy. We shall briefly talk about Marx, Darwin, and Freud. And if we can manage a few closing comments on Sartre and Existentialism, our plan can be put into operation.”

“That’s an awful lot for one week.”

“That’s why we must begin at once. Can you come over right away?”

“I have to go to school. We are having a class get-together and then we get our grades.”

“Drop it. If we are only fictive, it’s pure imagination that candy and soda have any taste.”

“But my grades ...”

“Sophie, either you are living in a wondrous universe on a tiny planet in one of many hundred billion galaxies— or else you are the result of a few electromagnetic impulses in the major’s mind. And you are talking about grades! You ought to be ashamed of yourself!”

“I’m sorry.”

“But you’d better go to school before we meet. It might have a bad influence on Hilde if you cut your last school-day. She probably goes to school even on her birthday. She is an angel, you know.”

“So I’ll come straight from school.” “We can meet at the major’s cabin.” “The major’s cabin?”

... Click!

Hilde let the ring binder slide into her lap. Her father had given her conscience a dig there—she did cut her last day at school. How sneaky of him!

She sat for a while wondering what the plan was that Alberto was devising. Should she sneak a look at the last page? No, that would be cheating. She’d better hurry up and read it to the end.

But she was convinced Alberto was right on one important point. One thing was

that her father had an overview of what was going to happen to Sophie and Alberto. But while he was writing, he probably didn’t know everything that would happen. He might dash off something in a great hurry, something he might not notice till long

after he had written it. In a situation like that Sophie and Alberto would have a certain amount of leeway.

Once again Hilde had an almost transfiguring conviction that Sophie and

Alberto really existed. Still waters run deep, she thought to herself.

Why did that idea come to her?

It was certainly not a thought that rippled the surface.

At school, Sophie received lots of attention because it was her birthday. Her classmates were already keyed up by thoughts of summer vacation, and grades, and the sodas on the last day of school. The minute the teacher dismissed the class with her best wishes for the vacation, Sophie ran home. Joanna tried to slow her down but Sophie called over her shoulder that there was something she just had to do.

In the mailbox she found two cards from Lebanon. They were both birthday cards: HAPPY BIRTHDAY—15 YEARS. One of them was to “Hilde M0ller Knag, c/o Sophie Amundsen . . .” But the other one was to Sophie herself. Both cards were stamped “UN Battalion—June 15.”

Sophie read her own card first:

Dear Sophie Amundsen, Today you are getting a card as well. Happy birthday, Sophie, and many thanks for everything you have done for Hilde. Best regards, Major Albert Knag.

Sophie was not sure how to react, now that Hilde’s father had finally written to her too. Hilde’s card read:

Dear Hilde, I have no idea what day or time it is in Lillesand. But, as I said, it doesn’t make much difference. If I know you, I am not too late for a last, or next to last, greeting from down here. But don’t stay up too late! Alberto will soon be telling you about the French Enlightenment. He will concentrate on seven points. They are:

1. Opposition to authority

2. Rationalism

3. The enlightenment movement

4. Cultural optimism

5. The return to nature

6. Natural religion

7. Human rights

The major was obviously still keeping his eye on them.

Sophie let herself in and put her report card with all the A’s on the kitchen table. Then she slipped through the hedge and ran into the woods.

Soon she was once again rowing across the little lake.

Alberto was sitting on the doorstep when she got to the cabin. He invited her to sit beside him. The weather was fine although a slight mist of damp raw air was coming off the lake. It was as though it had not quite recovered from the storm.

“Let’s get going right away,” said Alberto.

“After Hume, the next great philosopher was the German, Immanuel

Kant. But France also had many important thinkers in the eighteenth century.

We could say that the philosophical center of gravity h. Europe in the eighteenth century was in England in the first half, in France in the middle, and in Germany toward the end of it.”

“A shift from west to east, in other words.”

“Precisely. Let me outline some of the ideas that many of the French Enlightenment philosophers had in common. The important names are Montesquieu, Voltaire, and Rousseau, but there were many, many others. I shall concentrate on seven points.”

“Thanks, that I am painfully aware of.”

Sophie handed him the card from Hilde’s father. Alberto sighed deeply. “He could have saved himself the trouble ... the first key words, then, are opposition to authority. Many of the French Enlightenment philosophers visited England, which was in many ways more liberal than their home country, and were intrigued by the English natural sciences, especially Newton and his universal physics. But they were also inspired by British philosophy, in particular by Locke and his political philosophy. Once back in France, they became increasingly opposed to the old authority. They thought it was essential to remain skeptical of all inherited truths, the idea being that the individual must find his own answer to every question. The tradition of Descartes was very inspiring in this respect.”

“Because he was the one who built everything up from the ground.” “Quite so. The opposition to authority was not least directed against the

power of the clergy, the king, and the nobility. During the eighteenth century, these institutions had far more power in France than they had in England.”

“Then came the French Revolution.”

“Yes, in 1789. But the revolutionary ideas arose much earlier. The next key word is rationalism.”

“I thought rationalism went out with Hume.”

“Hume himself did not die until 1776. That was about twenty years after Montesquieu and only two years before Voltaire and Rousseau, who both died in 1778. But all three had been to England and were familiar with the philosophy of Locke. You may recall that Locke was not consistent in his empiricism. He believed, for example, that faith in God and certain moral norms were inherent in human reason. This idea is also the core of the French Enlightenment.”

“You also said that the French have always been more rational than the

British.”

“Yes, a difference that goes right back to the Middle Ages. When the British speak of ‘common sense,’ the French usually speak of ‘evident.’ The English expression means ‘what everybody knows,’ the French means ‘what is obvious’—to one’s reason, that is.”

“I see.”

“Like the humanists of antiquity—such as Socrates and the Stoics— most of the Enlightenment philosophers had an unshakable faith in human reason. This was so characteristic that the French Enlightenment is often called the Age of Reason. The new natural sciences had revealed that nature was subject to reason. Now the Enlightenment philosophers saw it as their duty to lay a foundation for morals, religion, and ethics in accordance with man’s immutable reason. This led to the enlightenment movement.”

“The third point.”

“Now was the time to start ‘enlightening’ the masses. This was to be the basis for a better society. People thought that poverty and oppression were the fault of ignorance and superstition. Great attention was therefore focused on the education of children and of the people. It is no accident that the science of pedagogy was founded during the Enlightenment.”

“So schools date from the Middle Ages, and pedagogy from the

Enlightenment.”

“You could say that. The greatest monument to the enlightenment movement was characteristically enough a huge encyclopedia. I refer to the Encyclopedia in 28 volumes published during the years from 1751 to 1772. All the great philosophers and men of letters contributed to it. ‘Everything is to be found here,’ it was said, ‘from the way needles are made to the way cannons are founded.’ “

“The next point is cultural optimism,” Sophie said.

“Would you oblige me by putting that card away while I am talking?” “Excuse me.”

“The Enlightenment philosophers thought that once reason and knowledge became widespread, humanity would make great progress. It

could only be a question of time before irrationalism and ignorance would give way to an ‘enlightened’ humanity. This thought was dominant in Western Europe until the last couple of decades. Today we are no longer so convinced that all ‘developments’ are to the good.

“But this criticism of ‘civilization’ was already being voiced by French

Enlightenment philosophers.”

“Maybe we should have listened to them.”

“For some, the new catchphrase was back to nature. But ‘nature’ to the Enlightenment philosophers meant almost the same as ‘reason/ since human reason was a gift of nature rather than of religion or of ‘civilization.’ It was observed that the so-called primitive peoples were frequently both healthier and happier than Europeans, and this, it was said, was because they had not been ‘civilized.’ Rousseau proposed the catchphrase, ‘We should return to nature.’ For nature is good, and man is ‘by nature’ good; it is civilization which ruins him. Rousseau also believed that the child should be allowed to remain in its ‘naturally’ innocent state as long as possible. It would not be wrong to say that the idea of the intrinsic value of childhood dates from the Enlightenment. Previously, childhood had been considered merely a preparation for adult life. But we are all human beings—and we live our life on this earth, even when we are children.”

“I should think so!”

“Religion, they thought, had to be made natural.” “What exactly did they mean by that?”

“They meant that religion also had to be brought into harmony with

‘natural’ reason. There were many who fought for what one could call a natural religion, and that is the sixth point on the list. At the time there were a lot of confirmed materialists who did not believe in a God, and who professed to atheism. But most of the Enlightenment philosophers thought it was irrational to imagine a world without God. The world was far too rational for that. Newton held the same view, for example. It was also considered rational to believe in the immortality of the soul. Just as for Descartes, whether or not man has an immortal soul was held to be more a question of reason than of

faith.”

“That I find very strange. To me, it’s a typical case of what you believe, not of what you know.”

“That’s because you don’t live in the eighteenth century. According to

the Enlightenment philosophers, what religion needed was to be stripped of all the irrational dogmas or doctrines that had got attached to the simple

teachings of Jesus during the course of ecclesiastical history.” “I see.”

“Many people consequently professed to what is known as Deism.” “What is that?”

“By Deism we mean a belief that God created the world ages and ages ago, but has not revealed himself to the world since. Thus God is reduced to the ‘Supreme Being’ who only reveals himself to mankind through nature and natural laws, never in any ‘supernatural’ way. We find a similar ‘philosophical God’ in the writings of Aristotle. For him, God was the ‘formal cause’ or ‘first mover.’ “

“So now there’s only one point left, human rights.”

“And yet this is perhaps the most important. On the whole, you could say that the French Enlightenment was more practical than the English philosophy.”

“You mean they lived according to their philosophy?”

“Yes, very much so. The French Enlightenment philosophers did not content themselves with theoretical views on man’s place in society. They fought actively for what they called the ‘natural rights’ of the citizen. At first, this took the form of a campaign against censorship—for the freedom of the press. But also in matters of religion, morals, and politics, the individual’s right to freedom of thought and utterance had to be secured. They also fought for the abolition of slavery and for a more humane treatment of criminals.”

“I think I agree with most of that.”

“The principle of the ‘inviolability of the individual’ culminated in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen adopted by the French National Assembly in 178V. This Declaration of Human Rights was the basis for our own Norwegian Constitution of 1814.”

“But a lot of people still have to fight for these rights.”

“Yes, unhappily. But the Enlightenment philosophers wanted to establish certain rights that everybody was entitled to simply by being born. That was what they meant by natural rights.

“We still speak of a ‘natural right’ which can often be in conflict with the laws of the land. And we constantly find individuals, or even whole nations, that claim this ‘natural right’ when they rebel against anarchy, servitude, and oppression.”

“What about women’s rights?”

“The French Revolution in 1787 established a number of rights for all

‘citizens.’ But a citizen was nearly always considered to be a man. Yet it was the French Revolution that gave us the first inklings of feminism.”

“It was about time!”

“As early as 1787 the Enlightenment philosopher Condorcet published a treatise on the rights of women. He held that women had the same ‘natural rights’ as men. During the Revolution of 1789, women were extremely active in the fight against the old feudal regime. For example, it was women who led

the demonstrations that forced the king away from his palace at Versailles. Women’s groups were formed in Paris. In addition to the demand for the same political rights as men, they also demanded changes in the marriage laws and in women’s social conditions.”

“Did they get equal rights?”

“No. Just as on so many subsequent occasions, the question of

women’s rights was exploited in the heat of the struggle, but as soon as things fell into place in a new regime, the old male-dominated society was re- introduced.”

“Typical!”

“One of those who fought hardest for the rights of women during the French Revolution was Olympe de Gouges. In 1791—two years after the revolution—she published a declaration on the rights of women. The dec- laration on the rights of the citizen had not included any article on women’s natural rights. Olympe de Gouges now demanded all the same rights for women as for men.”

“What happened?”

“She was beheaded in 1793. And all political activity for women was banned.”

“How shameful!”

“It was not until the nineteenth century that feminism really got under way, not only in France but also in the rest of Europe. Little by little this struggle began to bear fruit. But in Norway, for example, women did not get the right to vote until 1913. And women in many parts of the world still have a lot to fight for.”

“They can count on my support.”

Alberto sat looking across at the lake. After a minute or two he said: “That was more or less what I wanted to say about the Enlightenment.” “What do you mean by more or less?”

“I have the feeling there won’t be any more.”

But as he said this, something began to happen in the middle of the lake. Something was bubbling up from the depths. A huge and hideous creature rose from the surface.

“A sea serpent!” cried Sophie.

The dark monster coiled itself back and forth a few times and then disappeared back into the depths. The water was as still as before.

Alberto had turned away. “Now we’ll go inside,” he said. They went into the little hut.

Sophie stood looking at the two pictures of Berkeley and Bjerkely. She pointed to the picture of Bjerkely and said:

“I think Hilde lives somewhere inside that picture.”

An embroidered sampler now hung between the two pictures. It read: LIBERTY, EQUALITY AND FRATERNITY.

Sophie turned to Alberto: “Did you hang that there?”

He just shook his head with a disconsolate expression.

Then Sophie discovered a small envelope on the mantelpiece. “To Hilde and Sophie,” it said. Sophie knew at once who it was from, but it was a new turn of events that he had begun to count on her.

She opened the letter and read aloud:

Dear both of you, Sophie’s philosophy teacher ought to have underlined the significance of the French Enlightenment for the ideals and principles the UN is founded on. Two hundred years ago, the slogan “Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity” helped unite the people of France. Today the same words should unite the whole world. It is more important now than ever before to be one big Family of Man. Our descendants are our own children and grandchildren. What kind of world are they inheriting from us?

Hilde’s mother was calling from downstairs that the mystery was starting in ten minutes and that she had put the pizza in the oven. Hilde was quite exhausted after all she had read. She had been up since six o’clock this morning.

She decided to spend the rest of the evening celebrating her birthday with her mother. But first she had to look something up in her encyclopedia.

Gouges ... no. De Gouges? No again. Olympe de Gouges? Still a blank. This encyclopedia had not written one single word about the woman who was beheaded for her political commitment. Wasn’t that scandalous!

She was surely not just someone her father had thought up? Hilde ran downstairs to get a bigger encyclopedia.

“I just have to look something up,” she said to her astounded mother.

She took the FORV to GP volume of the big family encyclopedia and ran up to her room again.

Gouges ... there she was!

Gouges, Marie Olympe (1748-1793), Fr. author, played a prominent role during the French Revolution with numerous brochures on social questions and several plays. One of the few during the Revolution who campaigned for human rights to apply to women. In 1791 published “Declaration on the Rights of Women.” Beheaded in 1793 for daring to defend Louis XVI and oppose Robespierre. (Lit: L. Lacour, “Les

Origines du feminisme contem-porain,” 1900)

Kant

...the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me...

It was close to midnight before Major Albert Knag called home to wish Hilde a happy birthday. Hilde’s mother answered the telephone.

“It’s for you, Hilde.” “Hello?”

“It’s Dad.”

“Are you crazy? It’s nearly midnight!”

“I just wanted to say Happy Birthday ...” “You’ve been doing that all day.”

“... but I didn’t want to call before the day was over.” “Why?”

“Didn’t you get my present?”

“Yes, I did. Thank you very much.”

“I can’t wait to hear what you think of it.”

“It’s terrific. I have hardly eaten all day, it’s so exciting.” “I have to know how far you’ve gotten.”

“They just went inside the major’s cabin because you started teasing them with a sea serpent.”

“The Enlightenment.”

“And Olympe de Gouges.”

“So I didn’t get it completely wrong.” “Wrong in what way?”

“I think there’s one more birthday greeting to come. But that one is set to music.”

“I’d better read a little more before I go to sleep.” “You haven’t given up, then?”

“I’ve learned more in this one day than ever before. I can hardly believe that it’s less than twenty-four hours since Sophie got home from school and found the first envelope.”

“It’s strange how little time it takes to read.” “But I can’t help feeling sorry for her.”

“For Mom?”

“No, for Sophie, of course.” “Why?”

“The poor girl is totally confused.” “But she’s only ...”

“You were going to say she’s only made up.” “Yes, something like that.”

“I think Sophie and Alberto really exist.” “We’ll talk more about it when I get home.” “Okay.”

“Have a nice day.” “What?”

“I mean good night.” “Good night.”

When Hilde went to bed half an hour later it was still so light that she could see the garden and the little bay. It never got really dark at this time of the year.

She played with the idea that she was inside a picture hanging on the wall of the little cabin in the woods. She wondered if one could look out of the picture into what surrounded it.

Before she fell asleep, she read a few more pages in the big ring binder.

Sophie put the letter from Hilde’s father back on the mantel.

“What he says about the UN is not unimportant,” said Alberto, “but I

don’t like him interfering in my presentation.”

“I don’t think you should worry too much about that.” “Nevertheless, from now on I intend to ignore all extraordinary

phenomena such as sea serpents and the like. Let’s sit here by the window while I tell you about Kant.”

Sophie noticed a pair of glasses lying on a small table between two armchairs. She also noticed that the lenses were red.

Maybe they were strong sunglasses . . .

“It’s almost two o’clock,” she said. “I have to be home before five. Mom has probably made plans for my birthday.”

“That gives us three hours.” “Let’s start.”

“Immanuel Kant was born in 1724 in the East Prussian town of Konigsberg, the son of a master saddler. He lived there practically all his life until he died at the age of eighty. His family was deeply pious, and his own religious conviction formed a significant background to his philosophy. Like Berkeley, he felt it was essential to preserve the foundations of Christian

belief.”

“I’ve heard enough about Berkeley, thanks.”

“Kant was the first of the philosophers we have heard about so far to have taught philosophy at a university. He was a professor of philosophy.”

“Professor?”

“There are two kinds of philosopher. One is a person who seeks his own answers to philosophical questions. The other is someone who is an expert

on the history of philosophy but does not necessarily construct his own phi- losophy.”

“And Kant was that kind?”

“Kant was both. If he had simply been a brilliant professor and an expert on the ideas of other philosophers, he would never have carved a place for himself in the history of philosophy. But it is important to note that Kant had a solid grounding in the philosophic tradition of the past. He was familiar both with the rationalism of Descartes and Spinoza and the empiricism of Locke, Berkeley, and Hume.”

“I asked you not to mention Berkeley again.”

“Remember that the rationalists believed that the basis for all human knowledge lay in the mind. And that the empiricists believed all knowledge of the world proceeded from the senses. Moreover, Hume had pointed out that there are clear limits regarding which conclusions we could reach through our sense perceptions.”

“And who did Kant agree with?”

“He thought both views were partly right, but he thought both were partly wrong, too. The question everybody was concerned with was what we can know about the world. This philosophical project had been preoccupying all philosophers since Descartes.

“Two main possibilities were drawn up: either the world is exactly as we perceive it, or it is the way it appears to our reason.”

“And what did Kant think?”

“Kant thought that both ‘sensing’ and ‘reason’ come into play in our conception of the world. But he thought the rationalists went too far in their claims as to how much reason can contribute, and he also thought the empiricists placed too much emphasis on sensory experience.”

“If you don’t give me an example soon, it will all be just a bunch of words.”

“In his point of departure Kant agrees with Hume and the empiricists that all our knowledge of the world comes from our sensations. But—and here

Kant stretches his hand out to the rationalists—in our reason there are also decisive factors that determine how we perceive the world around us. In other words, there are certain conditions in the human mind that are contributive to our conception of the world.”

“You call that an example?”

“Let us rather do a little experiment. Could you bring those glasses from the table over there? Thank you. Now, put them on.”

Sophie put the glasses on. Everything around her became red. The pale colors became pink and the dark colors became crimson.

“What do you see?”

“I see exactly the same as before, except that it’s all red.” “That’s because the glasses limit the way you perceive reality.

Everything you see is part of the world around you, but how you see it is determined by the glasses you are wearing. So you cannot say the world is red even though you conceive it as being so.”

“No, naturally.”

“If you now took a walk in the woods, or home to Captain’s Bend, you would see everything the way you normally do. But whatever you saw, it would all be red.”

“As long as I didn’t take the glasses off, yes.”

“And that, Sophie, is precisely what Kant meant when he said that there are certain conditions governing the mind’s operation which influence the way we experience the world.”

“What kind of conditions?”

“Whatever we see will first and foremost be perceived as phenomena in time and space. Kant called ‘time’ and ‘space’ our two ‘forms of intuition.’ And he emphasized that these two ‘forms’ in our own mind precede every ex- perience. In other words, we can know before we experience things that we will perceive them as phenomena in time and space. For we are not able to take off the ‘glasses’ of reason.”

“So he thought that perceiving things in time and space was innate?” “Yes, in a way. What we see may depend on whether we are raised in

India or Greenland, but wherever we are, we experience the world as a series of processes in time and space. This is something we can say beforehand.”

“But aren’t time and space things that exist beyond ourselves?”

“No. Kant’s idea was that time and space belong to the human condition. Time and space are first and foremost modes of perception and not attributes or the physical world.”

“That was a whole new way of looking at things.”

“For the mind of man is not just ‘passive wax’ which simply receives sensations from outside. The mind leaves its imprint on the way we

apprehend the world. You could compare it with what happens when you pour water into a glass pitcher. The water adapts itself to the pitcher’s form. In the same way our perceptions adapt themselves to our ‘forms of intuition.’ “

“I think I understand what you mean.”

“Kant claimed that it is not only mind which conforms to things. Things also conform to the mind. Kant called this the Copernican Revolution in the problem of human knowledge.

“By that he meant that it was just as new and just as radically different from former thinking as when Copernicus claimed that the earth revolved around the sun and not vice versa.”

“I see now how he could think both the rationalists and the empiricists were right up to a point. The rationalists had almost forgotten the importance of experience, and the empiricists had shut their eyes to the way our own mind influences the way we see the world.”

“And even the law of causality—which Hume believed man could not experience—belongs to the mind, according to Kant.”

“Explain that, please.”

“You remember how Hume claimed that it was only force of habit that made us see a causal link behind all natural processes. According to Hume, we cannot perceive the black billiard ball as being the cause of the white ball’s movement. Therefore, we cannot prove that the black billiard ball will always

set the white one in motion.” “Yes, I remember.”

“But that very thing which Hume says we cannot prove is what Kant makes into an attribute of human reason. The law of causality is eternal and absolute simply because human reason perceives everything that happens as a matter of cause and effect.”

“Again, I would have thought that the law of causality lay in the physical world itself, not in our minds.”

“Kant’s philosophy states that it is inherent in us. He agreed with Hume that we cannot know with certainty what the world is like ‘in itself.’ We can only know what the world is like ‘for me’—or for everybody. Kant’s greatest contribution to philosophy is the dividing line he draws between things in themselves—das Ding an sich— and things as they appear to us.”

“I’m not so good at German.”

“Kant made an important distinction between ‘the thing in itself and ‘the thing for me.’ We can never have certain knowledge of things ‘in themselves.’ We can only know how things ‘appear’ to us. On the other hand, prior to any particular experience we can say something about how things will be perceived by the human mind.”

“We can?”

“Before you go out in the morning, you cannot know what you will see or experience during the day. But you can know that what you see and experience will be perceived as happening in time and space. You can more- over be confident that the law of cause and effect will apply, simply because you carry it with you as part of your consciousness.”

“But you mean we could have been made differently?”

“Yes, we could have had a different sensory apparatus. And we could have had a different sense or time and a different feeling about space. We could even have been created in such a way that we would not go around searching for the cause of things that happen around us.”

“How do you mean?”

“Imagine there’s a cat lying on the floor in the living room. A ball comes rolling into the room. What does the cat do?”

“I’ve tried that lots of times. The cat will run after the ball.”

“All right. Now imagine that you were sitting in that same room. If you suddenly see a ball come rolling in, would you also start running after it?”

“First, I would turn around to see where the ball came from.”

“Yes, because you are a human being, you will inevitably look for the cause of every event, because the law of causality is part of your makeup.”

“So Kant says.”

“Hume showed that we can neither perceive nor prove natural laws. That made Kant uneasy. But he believed he could prove their absolute validity by showing that in reality we are talking about the laws of human cognition.”

“Will a child also turn around to see where the ball came from?” “Maybe not. But Kant pointed out that a child’s reason is not fully

developed until it has had some sensory material to work with. It is altogether senseless to talk about an empty mind.”

“No, that would be a very strange mind.”

“So now let’s sum up. According to Kant, there are two elements that contribute to man’s knowledge of the world. One is the external conditions

that we cannot know of before we have perceived them through the senses. We can call this the material of knowledge. The other is the internal conditions in man himself—such as the perception of events as happening in time and space and as processes conforming to an unbreakable law of causality. We can call this the form of knowledge.”

Alberto and Sophie remained seated for a while gazing out of the window. Suddenly Sophie saw a little girl between the trees on the opposite side of the lake.

“Look!” said Sophie. “Who’s that?” “I’m sure I don’t know.”

The girl was only visible for a few seconds, then she was gone. Sophie noticed that she was wearing some kind of red hat.

“We shall under no circumstances let ourselves be distracted.” “Go on, then.”

“Kant believed that there are clear limits to what we can know. You could perhaps say that the mind’s ‘glasses’ set these limits.”

“In what way?”

“You remember that philosophers before Kant had discussed the really

‘big’ questions—for instance, whether man has an immortal soul, whether there is a God, whether nature consists of tiny indivisible particles, and whether the universe is finite or infinite.”

“Yes.”

“Kant believed there was no certain knowledge to be obtained on these questions. Not that he rejected this type of argument. On the contrary. If he had just brushed these questions aside, he could hardly have been called a philosopher.”

“What did he do?”

“Be patient. In such great philosophical questions, Kant believed that reason operates beyond the limits of what we humans can comprehend. At the same time, there is in our nature a basic desire to pose these same questions. But when, for example, we ask whether the universe is finite or infinite, we are asking about a totality of which we ourselves are a tiny part. We can therefore never completely know this totality.”

“Why not?”

“When you put the red glasses on, we demonstrated that according to

Kant there are two elements that contribute to our knowledge of the world.” “Sensory perception and reason.”

“Yes, the material of our knowledge comes to us through the senses, but this material must conform to the attributes of reason. For example, one of the attributes of reason is to seek the cause of an event.”

“Like the ball rolling across the floor.”

“If you like. But when we wonder where the world came from—and then discuss possible answers—reason is in a sense ‘on hold.’ For it has no sensory material to process, no experience to make use of, because we have never experienced the whole of the great reality that we are a tiny part of.”

“We are—in a way—a tiny part of the ball that comes rolling across the floor. So we can’t know where it came from.”

“But it will always be an attribute of human reason to ask where the ball comes from. That’s why we ask and ask, we exert ourselves to the fullest to find answers to all the deepest questions. But we never get anything firm to

bite on; we never get a satisfactory answer because reason is not locked on.” “I know exactly how that feels, thank you very much.”

“In such weighty questions as to the nature of reality, Kant showed that there will always be two contrasting viewpoints that are equally likely or unlikely, depending on what our reason tells us.”

“Examples, please.”

“It is just as meaningful to say that the world must have had a beginning in time as to say that it had no such beginning. Reason cannot decide between them. We can allege that the world has always existed, but con anything always have existed if there was never any beginning? So now we are forced to adopt the opposite view.

“We say that the world must have begun sometime— and it must have begun from nothing, unless we want to talk about a change from one state to another. But can something come from nothing, Sophie?”

“No, both possibilities are equally problematic. Yet it seems one of them must be right and the other wrong.”

“You probably remember that Democritus and the materialists said that nature must consist of minimal parts that everything is made up of. Others, like Descartes, believed that it must always be possible to divide extended reality into ever smaller parts. But which of them was right?”

“Both. Neither.”

“Further, many philosophers named freedom as one of man’s most important values. At the same time we saw philosophers like the Stoics, for example, and Spinoza, who said that everything happens through the necessity of natural law. This was another case of human reason being unable to make a certain judgment, according to Kant.”

“Both views are equally reasonable and unreasonable.”

“Finally, we are bound to fail if we attempt to prove the existence of God with the aid of reason. Here the rationalists, like Descartes, had tried to prove that there must be a God simply because we have the idea of a ‘supreme being.’ Others, like Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, decided that there must be a God because everything must have a first cause.”

“What did Kant think?”

“He rejected both these proofs of the existence of God. Neither reason nor experience is any certain basis for claiming the existence of God. As far as reason goes, it is just as likely as it is unlikely that God exists.”

“But you started by saying that Kant wanted to preserve the basis for

Christian faith.”

“Yes, he opened up a religious dimension. There, where both reason and experience fall short, there occurs a vacuum that can be filled by faith.”

“That’s how he saved Christianity?”

“If you will. Now, it might be worth noting that Kant was a Protestant. Since the days of the Reformation, Protestantism has been characterized by its emphasis on faith. The Catholic Church, on the other hand, has since the early Middle Ages believed more in reason as a pillar of faith.

“But Kant went further than simply to establish that these weighty questions should be left to the faith of the individual. He believed that it is essential for morality to presuppose that man has an immortal soul, that God exists, and that man has a free will.”

“So he does the same as Descartes. First he is very critical of everything

we can understand. And then he smuggles God in by the back door.”

“But unlike Descartes, he emphasizes most particularly that it is not reason which brought him to this point but faith. He himself called faith in the immortal soul, in God’s existence, and in man’s free will practical postulates.”

“Which means?”

“To ‘postulate’ something is to assume something that cannot be proved. By a ‘practical postulate,’ Kant meant something that had to be assumed for the sake of ‘praxis,’ or practice; that is to say, for man’s morality. ‘It is a moral necessity to assume the existence of God,’ he said.”

Suddenly there was a knock at the door. Sophie got up, but as Alberto gave no sign of rising, she asked: “Shouldn’t we see who it is?”

Alberto shrugged and reluctantly got up. They opened the door, and a little girl stood there in a white summer dress and a red bonnet. It was the girl they had seen on the other side of the lake. Over one arm she carried a basket of food.

“Hi,” said Sophie. “Who are you?”

“Can’t you see I am Little Red Ridinghood?” Sophie looked at Alberto, and Alberto nodded. “You heard what she said.”

“I’m looking for my grandmother’s house,” said the girl. “She is old and sick, but I’m taking her some food.”

“It’s not here,” said Alberto, “so you’d better get on your way.”

He gestured in a way that reminded Sophie of the way you brush off a

fly.

“But I’m supposed to deliver a letter,” continued the girl in the red

bonnet.

With that, she took out a small envelope and handed it to Sophie. Then she went skipping away.

“Watch out for the wolf!” Sophie called after her.

Alberto was already on his way back into the living room. “Just think! That was Little Red Ridinghood,” said Sophie.

“And it’s no good warning her. She will go to her grandmother’s house and be eaten by the wolf. She never learns. It will repeat itself to the end of time “

“But I have never heard that she knocked on the door of another house before she went to her grandmother’s.”

“A bagatelle, Sophie.”

Now Sophie looked at the envelope she had been given. It was addressed “To Hilde.” She opened it and read aloud:

Dear Hilde, If the human brain was simple enough for us to understand, we would still be so stupid that we couldn’t understand it. Love, Dad.

Alberto nodded. “True enough. I believe Kant said something to that effect. We cannot expect to understand what we are. Maybe we can comprehend a flower or an insect, but we can never comprehend ourselves. Even less can we expect to comprehend the universe.”

Sophie had to read the cryptic sentence in the note to Hilde several times before Alberto went on: “We are not going to be interrupted by sea serpents and the like. Before we stop for today, I’ll tell you about Kant’s ethics.”

“Please hurry. I have to go home soon.”

“Hume’s skepticism with regard to what reason and the senses can tell us forced Kant to think through many of life’s important questions again. Not least in the area of ethics.”

“Didn’t Hume say that you can never prove what is right and what is wrong2 You can’t draw conclusions from is - sentence? to ought-sentences.”

“For Hume it was neither our reason nor our experience that determined the difference between right and wrong. It was simply our sentiments. This was too tenuous a basis for Kant.”

“I can imagine.”

“Kant had always felt that the difference between right and wrong was a matter of reason, not sentiment. In this he agreed with the rationalists, who said the ability to distinguish between right and wrong is inherent in human reason. Everybody knows what is right or wrong, not because we have

learned it but because it is born in the mind. According to Kant, everybody has

‘practical reason,’ that is, the intelligence that gives us the capacity to discern what is right or wrong in every case.”

“And that is innate?”

“The ability to tell right from wrong is just as innate as all the other attributes of reason. Just as we are all intelligent beings, for example, perceiving everything as having a causal relation, we all have access to the same universal moral law.

“This moral law has the same absolute validity as the physical laws. It is just as basic to our morality as the statements that everything has a cause, or that seven plus five is twelve, are basic to our intelligence.”

“And what does that moral law say?”

“Since it precedes every experience, it is ‘formal.’ That is to say, it is not bound to any particular situation of moral choice. For it applies to all people in all societies at all times. So it does not say you shall do this or this if you find yourself in that or that situation. It says how you are to behave in all situations.”

“But what is the point of having a moral law implanted inside yourself if it doesn’t tell you what to do in specific situations?”

“Kant formulates the moral law as a categorical imperative. By this he means that the moral law is ‘categorical,’ or that it applies to all situations. It is, moreover, ‘imperative,’ which means it is commanding and therefore ab- solutely authoritative.”

“Kant formulates this ‘categorical imperative’ in several ways. First he says: Act as if the maxim of your action were to become through your will a Universal Law of Nature.”

“So when I do something, I must make sure I want everybody else to do the same if they are in the same situation.”

“Exactly. Only then will you be acting in accordance with the moral law within you. Kant also formulates the ‘categorical imperative’ in this way: Act in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never simply as a means, but always at the same time as an end.”

“So we must not exploit other people to our own advantage.”

“No, because every man is an end in himself. But that does not only apply to others, it also applies to you yourself. You must not exploit yourself as a mere means to achieving something, either.”

“It reminds me of the golden rule: Do unto others . . .”

“Yes, that is also a ‘formal’ rule of conduct that basically covers all ethical choices. You could say that the golden rule says the same thing as Kant’s universal law of morals.”

“But surely this is only an assertion. Hume was probably right in that we can’t prove what is right or wrong by reason.”

“According to Kant, the law of morals is just as absolute and just as universal as the law of causality. That cannot be proved by reason either, but it is nevertheless absolute and unalterable. Nobody would deny that.”

“I get the feeling that what we are really talking about is conscience. Because everybody has a conscience, don’t they?”

“Yes. When Kant describes the law of morals, he is describing the human conscience. We cannot prove what our conscience tells us, but we know it, nevertheless.”

“Sometimes I might only be kind and helpful to others because I know it pays off. It could be a way of becoming popular.”

“But if you share with others only to be popular, you are not acting out of respect for moral law. You might be acting in accordance with moral law—and that could be fair enough—but if it is to be a moral action, you must have conquered yourself. Only when you do something purely out of duty can it be called a moral action. Kant’s ethics is therefore sometimes called duty ethics.”

“I can feel it my duty to collect money for the Red Cross or the church bazaar.”

“Yes, and the important thing is that you do it because you know it is right. Even if the money you collect gets lost in the street, or is not sufficient to feed all the mouths it is intended to, you obeyed the moral law. You acted out of good will, and according to Kant, it is this good will which determines whether or not the action was morally right, not the consequences of the action. Kant’s ethics is therefore also called a good will ethic.”

“Why was it so important to him to know exactly when one acts out of respect for moral law? Surely the most important thing is that what we do really helps other peo-pie.”

“Indeed it is and Kant would certainly not disagree. But only when we know in ourselves that we are acting out of respect for moral law are we acting freely.”

“We act freely only when we obey a law? Isn’t that kind of peculiar?” “Not according to Kant. You perhaps remember that he had to

‘assume’or ‘postulate’ that man has a free will. This is an important point, because Kant also said that everything obeys the law of causality. How, then, can we have a free will?”

“Search me.”

“On this point Kant divides man into two parts in a way not dissimilar to the way Descartes claimed that man was a ‘dual creature,’ one with both a body and a mind. As material creatures, we are wholly and fully at the mercy of causality’s unbreakable law, says Kant. We do not decide what we perceive—perception comes to us through necessity and influences us whether we like it or not. But we are not only material creatures—we are also creatures of reason.

“As material beings we belong wholly to the natural world. We are therefore subject to causal relations. As such, we have no free will. But as

rational beings we have a part in what Kant calls das Ding an sich—that is, the world as it exists in itself, independent of our sensory impressions. Only when we follow our ‘practical reason’— which enables us to make moral choices—do we exercise our free will, because when we conform to moral law, it is we who make the law we are conforming to.”

“Yes, that’s true in a way. It is me, or something in me, which tells me not to be mean to others.”

“So when you choose not to be mean—even if it is against your own interests—you are then acting freely.”

“You’re not especially free or independent if you just do whatever you want, in any case.”

“One can become a slave to all kinds of things. One can even become a slave to one’s own egoism. Independence and freedom are exactly what are required to rise above one’s desires and vices.”

“What about animals? I suppose they just follow their inclinations and needs. They don’t have any freedom to follow moral law, do they?”

“No, that’s the difference between animals and humans.” “I see that now.”

“And finally we could perhaps say that Kant succeeded in showing the way out of the impasse that philosophy had reached in the struggle between rationalism and empiricism. With Kant, an era in the history of philosophy is therefore at an end. He died in 1804, when the cultural epoch we call Romanticism was in the ascendant. One of his most quoted sayings is carved on his gravestone in Konigsberg: Two things fill my mind with ever-increasing wonder and awe, the more often and the more intensely the reflection dwells on them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.’ “

Alberto leaned back in his chair. “That’s it,” he said. “I think I have told you what’s most important about Kant.”

“Anyway, it’s a quarter past four.”

“But there is just one thing. Please give me a minute.”

“I never leave the classroom before the teacher is finished.”

“Did I say that Kant believed we had no freedom if we lived only as creatures of the senses?”

“Yes, you said something like that.”

“But if we obey universal reason we are free and independent. Did I say that, too?”

“Yes. Why are you saying it again now?”

Alberto leaned toward Sophie, looked deep into her eyes, and whispered: “Don’t believe everything you see, Sophie.”

“What do you mean by that?” “Just turn the other way, child.”

“Now, I don’t understand what you mean at all.”

“People usually say, I’ll believe that when I see it. But don’t believe what you see, either.”

“You said something like that once before.” “Yes, about Parmenides.”

“But I still don’t know what you mean.”

“Well, we sat out there on the step, talking. Then that so-called sea serpent began to flap about in the water.”

“Wasn’t it peculiar!”

“Not at all. Then Little Red Ridinghood came to the door. ‘I’m looking for my grandmother’s house.’ What a silly performance! It’s just the major’s tricks, Sophie. Like the banana message and that idiotic thunderstorm.”

“Do you think ... ?”

“But I said I had a plan. As long as we stick to our reason, he can’t trick us. Because in a way we are free. He can let us ‘perceive’ all kinds of things; nothing would surprise me. If he lets the sky go dark or elephants fly, I shall only smile. But seven plus five is twelve. That’s a fact that survives all his comic-strip effects. Philosophy is the opposite of fairy tales.”

Sophie sat for a moment staring at him in amazement.

“Off you go,” he said finally. “I’ll call you for a session on Romanticism. You also need to hear about Hegel and Kierkegaard. But there’s only a week to go before the major arrives at Kjevik airport. Before then, we must manage to free ourselves from his gluey fantasies. I’ll say no more, Sophie. Except that I want you to know I’m working on a wonderful plan for both of us.”

“I’ll be off, then.”

“Wait—we may have forgotten the most important thing.” “What’s that?”

“The birthday song, Sophie. Hilde is fifteen today.” “So am I.”

“You are, too, yes. Let’s sing then.” They both stood up and sang: “Happy Birthday to You.”

It was half-past four. Sophie ran down to the water’s edge and rowed over to the other side. She pulled the boat up into the rushes and began to hurry through the woods.

When she reached the path, she suddenly noticed something moving between the trees. She wondered if it was Little Red Ridinghood wandering alone through the woods to her grandmother’s, but the figure between the trees was much smaller.

She went nearer. The figure was no bigger than a doll. It was brown and was wearing a red sweater.

Sophie stopped dead in her tracks when she realized it was a teddy

bear.

That someone could have left a teddy bear in the forest was in itself no

surprise. But this teddy bear was alive, and seemed intensely preoccupied. “Hi,” said Sophie.

“My name is Winnie-the-Pooh,” said the teddy bear, “and I have unfortunately lost my way in the woods on this otherwise very fine day. I have certainly never seen you before.”

“Maybe I’m the one who has never been here before,” said Sophie. “So for that matter you could still be back home in Hundred Acre Wood.”

“No, that sum is much too hard. Don’t forget I’m only a small bear and

I’m not very clever.”

“I have heard of you.”

“And I suppose you are Alice. Christopher Robin told us about you one day. I suppose that’s how we met. You drank so much out of one bottle that you got smaller and smaller. But then you drank out of another bottle and started to grow again. You really have to be careful what you put in your mouth. I ate so much once that I got stuck in a rabbit hole.”

“I am not Alice.”

“It makes no difference who we are. The important thing is that we are. That’s what Owl says, and he is very wise. Seven plus four is twelve, he once said on quite an ordinary sunny day. Both Eeyore and me felt very stupid, ‘cos it’s hard to do sums. It’s much easier to figure out the weather.”

“My name is Sophie.”

“Nice to meet you, Sophie. As I said, I think you must be new around here. But now this little bear has to go ‘cos I’ve got to find Piglet. We are going to a great big garden party for Rabbit and his friends.”

He waved with one paw. Sophie saw now that he was holding a little folded piece of paper in the other.

“What is that you’ve got there?” she asked.

Winnie-the-Pooh produced the paper and said: “This was what made me lose my way.”

“But it’s only a piece of paper.”

“No it’s not only a piece of paper. It’s a letter to Hilde-through-the- Looking-Glass.”

“Oh—I can take that.”

“Are you the girl in the looking glass?” “No, but. . .”

“A letter must always be delivered personally. Christopher Robin had to teach me that only yesterday.”

“But I know Hilde.”

“Makes no difference. Even if you know a person very well, you should never read their letters.”

“I mean, I can give it to Hilde.”

“That’s quite a different thing. Here you are, Sophie. If I can get rid of this letter, I can probably find Piglet as well. To find Hilde-through-the- Looking-Glassyou must first find a big looking glass. But that is no easy matter round here.”

And with that the little bear handed over the folded paper to Sophie and set off through the woods on his little feet. When he was out of sight, Sophie unfolded the piece of paper and read it:

Dear Hilde, It’s too bad that Alberto didn’t also tell Sophie that Kant advocated the establishment of a “league of nations.” In his treatise Perpetual Peace, he wrote that all countries should unite in a league of the nations, which would assure peaceful coexistence between nations. About 125 years after the appearance of this treatise in 1795, the League of Nations was founded, after the First World War. After the Second World War it was replaced by the United Nations. So you could say that Kant was the father of the UN idea. Kant’s point was that man’s “practical reason” requires the nations to emerge from their wild state of nature which creates wars, and contract to keep the peace. Although the road to the establishment of a

league of nations is laborious, it is our duty to work for the “universal and last- ing securing of peace.” The establishment of such a league was for Kant a

far-distant goal. You could almost say it was philosophy’s ultimate goal. I am in Lebanon at the moment. Love, Dad.

Sophie put the note in her pocket and continued on her way homeward. This was the kind of meeting in the woods Alberto had warned her about. But she couldn’t have let the little teddy wander about in the woods on a never

ending hunt for Hilde-through-the-Looking-Glass, could she?