Sophie's World: A Novel About the History of Philosophy

Postscript

Let me try to say a few words about how all this hangs together, my dear Sophie. As Christianity makes its entry into the Greco-Roman world we are witnessing a dramatic meeting of two cultures. We are also seeing one of history’s great cultural revolutions.

We are about to step out of antiquity. Almost one thousand years have passed since the days of the early Greek philosophers. Ahead of us we have the Christian Middle Ages, which also lasted for about a thousand years.

The German poet Goethe once said that “he who cannot draw on three thousand years is living from hand to mouth.” I don’t want you to end up in such a sad state. I will do what I can to acquaint you with your historical roots. It is the only way to become a human being. It is the only way to become more than a naked ape. It is the only way to avoid floating in a vacuum.

“It is the only way to become a human being. It is the only way to become more than a naked ape ...”

Sophie sat for a while staring into the garden through the little holes in the hedge. She was beginning to understand why it was so important to know about her historical roots. It had certainly been important to the Children of Israel.

She herself was just an ordinary person. But if she knew her historical roots, she would be a little less ordinary.

She would not be living on this planet for more than a few years. But if the history of mankind was her own history, in a way she was thousands of years old.

The Middle Ages

... going only part of the way is not the same as going the wrong way…

A week passed without Sophie hearing from Alberto Knox. There were no more postcards from Lebanon either, although she and Joanna still talked about the cards they found in the major’s cabin. Joanna had had the fright of her life, but as nothing further seemed to happen, the immediate terror faded and was submerged in homework and badminton.

Sophie read Alberto’s letters over and over, looking for some clue that would throw light on the Hilde mystery. Doing so also gave her plenty of opportunity to digest the classical philosophy. She no longer had difficulty in distinguishing Democritus and Socrates, or Plato and Aristotle, from each other.

On Friday, May 25, she was in the kitchen fixing dinner before her mother got home. It was their regular Friday agreement. Today she was making fish soup with fish balls and carrots. Plain and simple.

Outside it was becoming windy. As Sophie stood stirring the casserole she turned toward the window. The birch trees were waving like cornstalks.

Suddenly something smacked against the window-pane. Sophie turned around again and discovered a card sticking to the window.

It was a postcard. She could read it through the glass: “Hilde Moller Knag, c/o Sophie Amundsen.”

She thought as much! She opened the window and took the card. It could hardly have blown all the way from Lebanon!

This card was also dated June 15. Sophie removed the casserole from the stove and sat down at the kitchen table. The card read:

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. Love from Dad, who sometimes gets very depressed about the thousand-year-long strife between Jews, Christians, and Muslims. I have to keep reminding myself that all three religions stem from Abraham. So I suppose they all pray to the same God. Down here, Cain and Abel have not finished killing each other.

P.S. Please say hello to Sophie. Poor child, she still doesn’t know how this whole thing hangs together. But perhaps you do?

Sophie put her head down on the table, exhausted. One thing was certain—she had no idea how this thing hung together. But Hilde did, presumably.

If Hilde’s father asked her to say hello to Sophie, it had to mean that Hilde knew more about Sophie than Sophie did about Hilde. It was all so complicated that Sophie went back to fixing dinner.

A postcard that smacked against the kitchen window all by itself! You could call that airmail!

As soon as she had set the casserole on the stove again, the telephone rang.

Suppose it was Dad! She wished desperately that he would come home so she could tell him everything that had happened in these last weeks. But it was probably only Joanna or Mom. Sophie snatched up the phone.

“Sophie Amundsen,” she said.

“It’s me,” said a voice.

Sophie was sure of three things: it was not her father. But it was a man’s voice, and a voice she knew she had heard before.

“Who is this?”

“It’s Alberto.”

“Ohhh!”

Sophie was at a loss for words. It was the voice from the Acropolis video that she had recognized.

“Are you all right?”

“Sure.”

“From now on there will be no more letters.”

“But I didn’t send you a frog!”

“We must meet in person. It’s beginning to be urgent, you see.”

“Why?”

“Hilde’s father is closing in on us.”

“Closing in how?”

“On all sides, Sophie. We have to work together now.”

“How...?”

“But you can’t help much before I have told you about the Middle Ages. We ought to cover the Renaissance and the seventeenth century as well. Berkeley is a key figure...”

“Wasn’t he the man in the picture at the major’s cabin?”

“That very same. Maybe the actual struggle will be waged over his philosophy.”

“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.”

“I don’t get it at all.”

“Perhaps the philosophers can open your eyes. Meet me at St. Mary’s Church at eight o’clock tomorrow morning. But come alone, my child.”

“So early in the morning?”

The telephone clicked.

“Hello?”

He had hung up! Sophie rushed back to the stove just before the fish soup boiled over.

St. Mary’s Church? That was an old stone church from the Middle Ages. It was only used for concerts and very special ceremonies. And in the summer it was sometimes open to tourists. But surely it wasn’t open in the middle of the night?

When her mother got home, Sophie had put the card from Lebanon with everything else from Alberto and Hilde. After dinner she went over to Joanna’s place.

“We have to make a very special arrangement,” she said as soon as her friend opened the door.

She said no more until Joanna had closed her bedroom door.

“It’s rather problematic,” Sophie went on.

“Spit it out!”

“I’m going to have to tell Mom that I’m staying the night here.”

“Great!”

“But it’s only something I’m saying, you see. I’ve got to go somewhere else.”

“That’s bad. Is it a guy?”

“No, it’s to do with Hilde.”

Joanna whistled softly, and Sophie looked her severely in the eye.

“I’m coming over this evening,” she said, “but at seven o’clock I’ve got to sneak out again. You’ve got to cover for me until I get back.”

“But where are you going? What is it you have to do?”

“Sorry. My lips are sealed.”

Sleepovers were never a problem. On the contrary, almost. Sometimes Sophie got the impression that her mother enjoyed having the house to herself.

“You’ll be home for breakfast, I suppose?” was her mother’s only remark as Sophie left the house.

“If I’m not, you know where I am.”

What on earth made her say that? It was the one weak spot.

Sophie’s visit began like any other sleepover, with talk until late into the night. The only difference was that when they finally settled down to sleep at about two o’clock, Sophie set the alarm clock to a quarter to seven.

Five hours later, Joanna woke briefly as Sophie switched off the buzzer.

“Take care,” she mumbled.

Then Sophie was on her way. St. Mary’s Church lay on the outskirts of the old part of town. It was several miles walk away, but even though she had only slept for a few hours she felt wide awake.

It was almost eight o’clock when she stood at the entrance to the old stone church. Sophie tried the massive door. It was unlocked!

Inside the church it was as deserted and silent as the church was old. A bluish light filtered in through the stained-glass windows revealing a myriad of tiny particles of dust hovering in the air. The dust seemed to gather in thick beams this way and that inside the church. Sophie sat on one of the benches in the center of the nave, staring toward the altar at an old crucifix painted with muted colors.

Some minutes passed. Suddenly the organ began to play. Sophie dared not look around. It sounded like an ancient hymn, probably from the Middle Ages.

There was silence again. Then she heard footsteps approaching from behind her. Should she look around? She chose instead to fix her eyes on the Cross.

The footsteps passed her on their way up the aisle and she saw a figure dressed in a brown monk’s habit. Sophie could have sworn it was a monk right out of the Middle Ages.

She was nervous, but not scared out of her wits. In front of the altar the monk turned in a half-circle and then climbed up into the pulpit. He leaned over the edge, looked down at Sophie, and addressed her in Latin:

“Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto. Sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper et in saecula saeculorum. Amen.”

“Talk sense, silly!” Sophie burst out.

Her voice resounded all around the old stone church.

Although she realized that the monk had to be Alberto Knox, she regretted her outburst in this venerable place of worship. But she had been nervous, and when you’re nervous its comforting to break all taboos.

“Shhh!” Alberto held up one hand as priests do when they want the congregation to be seated.

“Middle Ages began at four,” he said.

“Middle Ages began at four?” asked Sophie, feeling stupid but no longer nervous.

“About four o’clock, yes. And then it was five and six and seven. But it was as if time stood still. And it got to be eight and nine and ten. But it was still the Middle Ages, you see. Time to get up to a new day, you may think. Yes, I see what you mean. But it is still Sunday, one long endless row of Sundays. And it got to be eleven and twelve and thirteen. This was the period we call the High Gothic, when the great cathedrals of Europe were built. And then, some time around fourteen hours, at two in the afternoon, a cock crowed—and the Middle Ages began to ebb away.”

“So the Middle Ages lasted for ten hours then,” said Sophie. Alberto thrust his head forward out of the brown monk’s cowl and surveyed his congregation, which consisted of a fourteen-year-old girl.

“If each hour was a hundred years, yes. We can pretend that Jesus was born at midnight. Paul began his missionary journeys just before half past one in the morning and died in Rome a quarter of an hour later. Around three in the morning the Christian church was more or less banned, but by A.D. 313 it was an accepted religion in the Roman Empire. That was in the reign of the Emperor Constantine. The holy emperor himself was first baptized on his deathbed many years later. From the year 380 Christianity was the official religion throughout the entire Roman Empire.”

“Didn’t the Roman Empire fall?”

“It was just beginning to crumble. We are standing before one of the greatest changes in the history of culture. Rome in the fourth century was being threatened both by barbarians pressing in from the north and by disintegration from within. In A.D. 330 Constantine the Great moved the capital of the Empire from Rome to Constantinople, the city he had founded at the approach to the Black Sea. Many people considered the new city the “second Rome.” In 395 the Roman Empire was divided in two—a Western Empire with Rome as its center, and an Eastern Empire with the new city of Constantinople as its capital. Rome was plundered by barbarians in 410, and in 476 the whole of the Western Empire was destroyed. The Eastern Empire continued to exist as a state right up until 1453 when the Turks conquered Constantinople.”

“And its name got changed to Istanbul?”

“That’s right! Istanbul is its latest name. Another date we should notice is 529. That was the year when the church closed Plato’s Academy in Athens. In the same year, the Benedictine order, the first of the great monastic orders, was founded. The year 529 thus became a symbol of the way the Christian Church put the lid on Greek philosophy. From then on, monasteries had the monopoly of education, reflection, and meditation. The clock was ticking toward half past five ...”

Sophie saw what Alberto meant by all these times. Midnight was 0, one o’clock was 100 years after Christ, six o’clock was 600 years after Christ, and 14 hours was 1,400 years after Christ...

Alberto continued: “The Middle Ages actually means the period between two other epochs. The expression arose during the Renaissance. The Dark Ages, as they were also called, were seen then as one interminable thousand-year-long night which had settled over Europe between antiquity and the Renaissance. The word ‘medieval’ is used negatively nowadays about anything that is over-authoritative and inflexible. But many historians now consider the Middle Ages to have been a thousand-year period of germination and growth. The school system, for instance, was developed in the Middle Ages. The first convent schools were opened quite early on in the period, and cathedral schools followed in the twelfth century. Around the year 1200 the first universities were founded, and the subjects to be studied were grouped into various ‘faculties,’ just as they are today.”

“A thousand years is a really long time.”

“Yes, but Christianity took time to reach the masses. Moreover, in the course of the Middle Ages the various nation-states established themselves, with cities and citizens, folk music and folktales. What would fairy tales and folk songs have been without the Middle Ages? What would Europe have been, even? A Roman province, perhaps. Yet the resonance in such names as England, France, or Germany is the very same boundless deep we call the Middle Ages. There are many shining fish swimming around in those depths, although we do not always catch sight of them. Snorri lived in the Middle Ages. So did Saint Olaf and Charlemagne, to say nothing of Romeo and Juliet, Joan of Arc, Ivanhoe, the Pied Piper of Hamelin, and many mighty princes and majestic kings, chivalrous knights and fair damsels, anonymous stained-glass window makers and ingenious organ builders. And I haven’t even mentioned friars, crusaders, or witches.”

“You haven’t mentioned the clergy, either.”

“Correct. Christianity didn’t come to Norway, by the way, until the eleventh century. It would be an exaggeration to say that the Nordic countries converted to Christianity at one fell swoop. Ancient heathen beliefs persisted under the surface of Christianity, and many of these pre-Christian elements became integrated with Christianity. In Scandinavian Christmas celebrations, for example, Christian and Old Norse customs are wedded even to this day. And here the old saying applies, that married folk grow to resemble each other. Yuletide cookies, Yuletide piglets, and Yuletide ale begin to resemble the Three Wise Men from the Orient and the manger in Bethlehem. But without doubt, Christianity gradually became the predominant philosophy of life. Therefore we usually speak of the Middle Ages as being a unifying force of Christian culture.”

“So it wasn’t all gloom, then?”

“The first centuries after the year 400 really were a cultural decline. The Roman period had been a high culture, with big cities that had sewers, public baths, and libraries, not to mention proud architecture. In the early centuries of the Middle Ages this entire culture crumbled. So did its trade and economy. In the Middle Ages people returned to payment in kind and bartering. The economy was now characterized by feudalism, which meant that a few powerful nobles owned the land, which the serfs had to toil on in order to live. The population also declined steeply in the first centuries. Rome had over a million inhabitants in antiquity. But by 600, the population of the old Roman capital had fallen to 40,000, a mere fraction of what it had been. Thus a relatively small population was left to wander among what remained of the majestic edifices of the city’s former glory. When they needed building materials, there were plenty of ruins to supply them. This is naturally a source of great sorrow to present-day archeologists, who would rather have seen medieval man leave the ancient monuments untouched.”

“It’s easy to know better after the fact.”

“From a political point of view, the Roman period was already over by the end of the fourth century. However, the Bishop of Rome became the supreme head of the Roman Catholic Church. He was given the title ‘Pope’—in Latin ‘papa,’ which means what it says— and gradually became looked upon as Christ’s deputy on earth. Rome was thus the Christian capital throughout most of the medieval period. But as the kings and bishops of the new nation-states became more and more powerful, some of them were bold enough to stand up to the might of the church.”

“You said the church closed Plato’s Academy in Athens. Does that mean that all the Greek philosophers were forgotten?”

“Not entirely. Some of the writings of Aristotle and Plato were known. But the old Roman Empire was gradually divided into three different cultures. In Western Europe we had a Latinized Christian culture with Rome as its capital. In Eastern Europe we had a Greek Christian culture with Constantinople as its capital. This city began to be called by its Greek name, Byzantium. We therefore speak of the Byzantine Middle Ages as opposed to the Roman Catholic Middle Ages. However, North Africa and the Middle East had also been part of the Roman Empire. This area developed during the Middle Ages into an Arabic-speaking Muslim culture. After the death of Muhammad in 632, both the Middle East and North Africa were won over to Islam. Shortly thereafter, Spain also became part of the world of Islamic culture. Islam adopted Mecca, Medina, Jerusalem, and Bagdad as holy cities. From the point of view of cultural history, it is interesting to note that the Arabs also took over the ancient Hellenistic city of Alexandria. Thus much of the old Greek science was inherited by the Arabs. All through the Middle Ages, the Arabs were predominant hi sciences such as mathematics, chemistry, astronomy, and medicine. Nowadays we still use Arabic figures. In a number of areas Arabic culture was superior to Christian culture.”

“I wanted to know what happened to Greek philosophy.”

“Can you imagine a broad river that divides for a while into three different streams before it once again becomes one great wide river?”

“Yes.”

“Then you can also see how the Greco-Roman culture was divided, but survived through the three cultures: the Roman Catholic in the west, the Byzantine in the east, and the Arabic in the south. Although it’s greatly oversimplified, we could say that Neoplatonism was handed down in the west, Plato in the east, and Aristotle to the Arabs in the south. But there was also something of them all in all three streams. The point is that at the end of the Middle Ages, all three streams came together in Northern Italy. The Arabic influence came from the Arabs in Spain, the Greek influence from Greece and the Byzantine Empire. And now we see the beginning of the Renaissance, the ‘rebirth’ of antique culture. In one sense, antique culture had survived the Dark Ages.”

“I see.”

“But let us not anticipate the course of events. We mast first talk a little about medieval philosophy. I shall not speak from this pulpit any more. I’m coming down.”

Sophie’s eyes were heavy from too little sleep. When she saw the strange monk descending from the pulpit of St. Mary’s Church, she felt as if she were dreaming.

Alberto walked toward the altar rail. He looked up at the altar with its ancient crucifix, then he walked slowly toward Sophie. He sat down beside her on the bench of the pew.

It was a strange feeling, being so close to him. Under his cowl Sophie saw a pair of deep brown eyes. They belonged to a middle-aged man with dark hair and a little pointed beard. Who are you, she wondered. Why have you turned my life upside down?

“We shall become better acquainted by and by,” he said, as if he had read her thoughts.

As they sat there together, with the light that filtered into the church through the stained-glass windows becoming sharper and sharper, Alberto Knox began to talk about medieval philosophy.

“The medieval philosophers took it almost for granted that Christianity was true,” he began. “The question was whether we must simply believe the Christian revelation or whether we can approach the Christian truths with the help of reason. What was the relationship between the Greek philosophers and what the Bible said? Was there a contradiction between the Bible and reason, or were belief and knowledge compatible? Almost all medieval philosophy centered on this one question.”

Sophie nodded impatiently. She had been through this in her religion class.

“We shall see how the two most prominent medieval philosophers dealt with this question, and we might as well begin with St. Augustine, who lived from 354 to 430. In this one person’s life we can observe the actual transition from late antiquity to the Early Middle Ages. Augustine was born in the little town of Tagaste in North Africa. At the age of sixteen he went to Carthage to study. Later he traveled to Rome and Milan, and lived the last years of his life in the town of Hippo, a few miles west of Carthage. However, he was not a Christian all his life. Augustine examined several different religions and philosophies before he became a Christian.”

“Could you give some examples?”

“For a time he was a Manichaean. The Manichaeans were a religious sect that was extremely characteristic of late antiquity. Their doctrine was half religion and half philosophy, asserting that the world consisted of a dualism of good and evil, light and darkness, spirit and matter. With his spirit, mankind could rise above the world of matter and thus prepare for the salvation of his soul. But this sharp division between good and evil gave the young Augustine no peace of mind. He was completely preoccupied with what we like to call the ‘problem of evil.’ By this we mean the question of where evil comes from. For a time he was influenced by Stoic philosophy, and according to the Stoics, there was no sharp division between good and evil. However, his principal leanings were toward the other significant philosophy of late antiquity, Neoplatonism. Here he came across the idea that all existence is divine in nature.”

“So he became a Neoplatonic bishop?”

“Yes, you could say that. He became a Christian first, but the Christianity of St. Augustine is largely influenced by Platonic ideas. And therefore, Sophie, therefore you have to understand that there is no dramatic break with Greek philosophy the minute we enter the Christian Middle Ages. Much of Greek philosophy was carried over to the new age through Fathers of the Church like St. Augustine.”

“Do you mean that St. Augustine was half Christian and half Neoplatonist?”

“He himself believed he was a hundred-percent Christian although he saw no real contradiction between Christianity and the philosophy of Plato. For him, the similarity between Plato and the Christian doctrine was so apparent that he thought Plato must have had knowledge of the Old Testament. This, of course, is highly improbable. Let us rather say that it was St. Augustine who ‘christianized’ Plato.”

“So he didn’t turn his back on everything that had to do with philosophy when he started believing in Christianity?”

“No, but he pointed out that there are limits to how far reason can get you in religious questions. Christianity is a divine mystery that we can only perceive through faith. But if we believe in Christianity, God will ‘illuminate’ the soul so that we experience a sort of supernatural knowledge of God. St. Augustine had felt within himself that there was a limit to how far philosophy could go. Not before he became a Christian did he find peace in his own soul. ‘Our heart is not quiet until it rests in Thee,’ he writes.”

“I don’t quite understand how Plato’s ideas could go together with Christianity,” Sophie objected. “What about the eternal ideas?”

“Well, St. Augustine certainly maintains that God created the world out of the void, and that was a Biblical idea. The Greeks preferred the idea that the world had always existed. But St. Augustine believed that before God created the world, the ‘ideas’ were in the Divine mind. So he located the Platonic ideas in God and in that way preserved the Platonic view of eternal ideas.”

“That was smart.”

“But it indicates how not only St. Augustine but many of the other Church Fathers bent over backward to bring Greek and Jewish thought together. In a sense they were of two cultures. Augustine also inclined to Neoplatonism in his view of evil. He believed, like Plotinus, that evil is the ‘absence of God.’ Evil has no independent existence, it is something that is not, for God’s creation is in fact only good. Evil comes from mankind’s disobedience, Augustine believed. Or, in his own words, ‘The good will is God’s work; the evil will is the falling away from God’s work.’ “

“Did he also believe that man has a divine soul?”

“Yes and no. St. Augustine maintained that there is an insurmountable barrier between God and the world. In this he stands firmly on Biblical ground, rejecting the doctrine of Plotinus that everything is one. But he nevertheless emphasizes that man is a spiritual being. He has a material body—which belongs to the physical world which ‘moth and rust doth corrupt’—but he also has a soul which can know God.”

“What happens to the soul when we die?”

“According to St. Augustine, the entire human race was lost after the Fall of Man. But God nevertheless decided that certain people should be saved from perdition.”

“In that case, God could just as well have decided that everybody should be saved.”

“As far as that goes, St. Augustine denied that man has any right to criticize God, referring to Paul’s Epistle to the Romans: ‘O Man, who art thou that replies! against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it; why hast thou made me thus? or Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honor and another unto dishonor?’ “

“So God sits up in his Heaven playing with people? And as soon as he is dissatisfied with one of his creations, he just throws it away.”

“St. Augustine’s point was that no man deserves God’s redemption. And yet God has chosen some to be saved from damnation, so for him there was nothing secret about who will be saved and who damned. It is preordained. We are entirely at his mercy.”

“So in a way, he returned to the old belief in fate.”

“Perhaps. But St. Augustine did not renounce man’s responsibility for his own life. He taught that we must live in awareness of being among the chosen. He did not deny that we have free will. But God has ‘foreseen’ how we will live.”

“Isn’t that rather unfair?” asked Sophie. “Socrates said that we all had the same chances because we all had the same common sense. But St. Augustine divides people into two groups. One group gets saved and the other gets damned.”

“You are right in that St. Augustine’s theology is considerably removed from the humanism of Athens. But St. Augustine wasn’t dividing humanity into two groups. He was merely expounding the Biblical doctrine of salvation and damnation. He explained this in a learned work called the City of God.”

“Tell me about that.”

“The expression ‘City of God,’ or ‘Kingdom of God,’ comes from the Bible and the teachings of Jesus. St. Augustine believed that all human history is a struggle between the ‘Kingdom of God’ and the ‘Kingdom of the World.’ The two ‘kingdoms’ are not political kingdoms distinct from each other. They struggle for mastery inside every single person. Nevertheless, the Kingdom of God is more or less clearly present in the Church, and the Kingdom of the World is present in the State—for example, in the Roman Empire, which was in decline at the time of St. Augustine. This conception became increasingly clear as Church and State fought for supremacy throughout the Middle Ages. There is no salvation outside the Church,’ it was now said. St. Augustine’s ‘City of God’ eventually became identical with the established Church. Not until the Reformation in the sixteenth century was there any protest against the idea that people could only obtain salvation through the Church.”

“It was about time!”

“We can also observe that St. Augustine was the first philosopher we have come across to draw history into his philosophy. The struggle between good and evil was by no means new. What was new was that for Augustine the struggle was played out in history. There is not much of Plato in this aspect of St. Augustine’s work. He was more influenced by the linear view of history as we meet it in the Old Testament: the idea that God needs all of history in order to realize his Kingdom of God. History is necessary for the enlightenment of man and the destruction of evil. Or, as St. Augustine put it, ‘Divine foresight directs the history of mankind from Adam to the end of time as if it were the story of one man who gradually develops from childhood to old age.’ “

Sophie looked at her watch. “It’s ten o’clock,” she said. “I’ll have to go soon.”

“But first I must tell you about the other great medieval philosopher. Shall we sit outside?”

Alberto stood up. He placed the palms of his hands together and began to stride down the aisle. He looked as if he was praying or meditating deeply on some spiritual truth. Sophie followed him; she felt she had no choice.

The sun had not yet broken through the morning clouds. Alberto seated himself on a bench outside the church. Sophie wondered what people would think if anyone came by. Sitting on a church bench at ten in the morning was odd in itself, and sitting with a medieval monk wouldn’t make things look any better.

“It is eight o’clock,” he began. “About four hundred years have elapsed since St. Augustine, and now school starts. From now until ten o’clock, convent schools will have the monopoly on education. Between ten and eleven o’clock the first cathedral schools will be founded, followed at noon by the first universities. The great Gothic cathedrals will be built at the same time. This church, too, dates from the 1200s—or what we call the High Gothic period. In this town they couldn’t afford a large cathedral.”

“They didn’t need one,” Sophie said. “I hate empty churches.”

“Ah, but the great cathedrals were not built only for large congregations. They were built to the glory of God and were in themselves a kind of religious celebration. However, something else happened during this period which has special significance for philosophers like us.”

Alberto continued: “The influence of the Arabs of Spain began to make itself felt. Throughout the Middle Ages, the Arabs had kept the Aristotelian tradition alive, and from the end of the twelfth century, Arab scholars began to arrive in Northern Italy at the invitation of the nobles. Many of Aristotle’s writings thus became known and were translated from Greek and Arabic into Latin. This created a new interest in the natural sciences and infused new life into the question of the Christian revelation’s relationship to Greek philosophy. Aristotle could obviously no longer be ignored in matters of science, but when should one attend to Aristotle the philosopher, and when should one stick to the Bible? Do you see?”

Sophie nodded, and the monk went on:

“The greatest and most significant philosopher of this period was St. Thomas Aquinas, who lived from 1225 to 1274. He came from the little town of Aquino, between Rome and Naples, but he also worked as a teacher at the University of Paris. I call him a philosopher but he was just as much a theologian. There was no great difference between philosophy and theology at that time. Briefly, we can say that Aquinas christianized Aristotle in the same way that St. Augustine christianized Plato in early medieval times.”

“Wasn’t it rather an odd thing to do, christianizing philosophers who had lived several hundred years before Christ?”

“You could say so. But by ‘christianizing’ these two great Greek philosophers, we only mean that they were interpreted and explained in such a way that they were no longer considered a threat to Christian dogma. Aquinas was among those who tried to make Aristotle’s philosophy compatible with Christianity. We say that he created the great synthesis between faith and knowledge. He did this by entering the philosophy of Aristotle and taking him at his word.”

“I’m sorry, but I had hardly any sleep last night. I’m afraid you’ll have to explain it more clearly.”

“Aquinas believed that there need be no conflict between what philosophy or reason teaches us and what the Christian Revelation or faith teaches us. Christendom and philosophy often say the same thing. So we can frequently reason ourselves to the same truths that we can read in the Bible.”

“How come? Can reason tell us that God created the world in six days or that Jesus was the Son of God?”

“No, those so-called verities of faith are only accessible through belief and the Christian Revelation. But Aquinas believed in the existence of a number of ‘natural theological truths.’ By that he meant truths that could be reached both through Christian faith and through our innate or natural reason. For example, the truth that there is a God. Aquinas believed that there are two paths to God. One path goes through faith and the Christian Revelation, and the other goes through reason and the senses. Of these two, the path of faith and revelation is certainly the surest, because it is easy to lose one’s way by trusting to reason alone. But Aquinas’s point was that there need not be any conflict between a philosopher like Aristotle and the Christian doctrine.”

“So we can take our choice between believing Aristotle and believing the Bible?”

“Not at all. Aristotle goes only part of the way because he didn’t know of the Christian revelation. But going only part of the way is not the same as going the wrong way. For example, it is not wrong to say that Athens is in Europe. But neither is it particularly precise. If a book only tells you that Athens is a city in Europe, it would be wise to look it up in a geography book as well. There you would find the whole truth that Athens is the capital of Greece, a small country in southeastern Europe. If you are lucky you might be told a little about the Acropolis as well. Not to mention Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.”

“But the first bit of information about Athens was true.”

“Exactly! Aquinas wanted to prove that there is only one truth. So when Aristotle shows us something our reason tells us is true, it is not in conflict with Christian teaching. We can arrive successfully at one aspect of the truth with the aid of reason and the evidence of our senses. For example, the kind of truths Aristotle refers to when he describes the plant and the animal kingdom. Another aspect of the truth is revealed to us by God through the Bible. But the two aspects of the truth overlap at significant points. There are many questions about which the Bible and reason tell us exactly the same thing.”

“Like there being a God?”

“Exactly. Aristotle’s philosophy also presumed the existence of a God—or a formal cause—which sets all natural processes going. But he gives no further description of God. For this we must rely solely on the Bible and the teachings of Jesus.”

“Is it so absolutely certain that there is a God?”

“It can be disputed, obviously. But even in our day most people will agree that human reason is certainly not capable of disproving the existence of God. Aquinas went further. He believed that he could prove God’s existence on the basis of Aristotle’s philosophy.”

“Not bad!”

“With our reason we can recognize that everything around us must have a ‘formal cause,’ he believed. God has revealed himself to mankind both through the Bible and through reason. There is thus both a ‘theology of faith’ and a ‘natural theology.’ The same is true of the moral aspect. The Bible teaches us how God wants us to live. But God has also given us a conscience which enables us to distinguish between right and wrong on a ‘natural’ basis. There are thus also ‘two paths’ to a moral life. We know that it is wrong to harm people even if we haven’t read in the Bible that we must ‘do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’ Here, too, the surest guide is to follow the Bible’s commandment.”

“I think I understand,” said Sophie now. “It’s almost like how we know there’s a thunderstorm, by seeing the lightning and by hearing the thunder.”

“That’s right! We can hear the thunder even if we are blind, and we can see the lightning even if we are deaf. It’s best if we can both see and hear, of course. But there is no contradiction between what we see and what we hear. On the contrary—the two impressions reinforce each other.”

“I see.”

“Let me add another picture. If you read a novel— John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, for example ...”

“I’ve read that, actually.”

“Don’t you feel you know something about the author just by reading his book?”

“I realize there is a person who wrote it.”

“Is that all you know about him?”

“He seems to care about outsiders.”

“When you read this book—which is Steinbeck’s creation—you get to know something about Steinbeck’s nature as well. But you cannot expect to get any personal information about the author. Could you tell from reading Of Mice and Men how old the author was when he wrote it, where he lived, or how many children he had?”

“Of course not.”

“But you can find this information in a biography of John Steinbeck. Only in a biography—or an autobiography—can you get better acquainted with Steinbeck, the person.”

“That’s true.”

“That’s more or less how it is with God’s Creation and the Bible. We can recognize that there is a God just by walking around in the natural world. We can easily see that He loves flowers and animals, otherwise He would not have made them. But information about God, the person, is only found in the Bible—or in God’s ‘autobiography,’ if you like.”

“You’re good at finding examples.”

“Mmmm...”

For the first time Alberto just sat there thinking— without answering.

“Does all this have anything to do with Hilde?” Sophie could not help asking.

“We don’t know whether there is a ‘Hilde’ at all.”

“But we know someone is planting evidence of her all over the place. Postcards, a silk scarf, a green wallet, a stocking ...”

Alberto nodded. “And it seems as if it is Hilde’s father who is deciding how many clues he will plant,” he said. “For now, all we know is that someone is sending us a lot of postcards. I wish he would write something about himself too. But we shall return to that later.”

“It’s a quarter to eleven. I’ll have to get home before the end of the Middle Ages.”

“I shall just conclude with a few words about how Aquinas adopted Aristotle’s philosophy in all the areas where it did not collide with the Church’s theology. These included his logic, his theory of knowledge, and not least his natural philosophy. Do you recall, for example, how Aristotle described the progressive scale of life from plants and animals to humans?”

Sophie nodded.

“Aristotle believed that this scale indicated a God that constituted a sort of maximum of existence. This scheme of things was not difficult to align with Christian theology. According to Aquinas, there was a progressive degree of existence from plants and animals to man, from man to angels, and from angels to God. Man, like animals, has a body and sensory organs, but man also has intelligence which enables him to reason things out.

Angels have no such body with sensory organs, which is why they have spontaneous and immediate intelligence. They have no need to ‘ponder,’ like humans; they have no need to reason out conclusions. They know everything that man can know without having to learn it step by step like us. And since angels have no body, they can never die. They are not everlasting like God, because they were once created by God. But they have no body that they must one day depart from, and so they will never die.”

“That sounds lovely!”

“But up above the angels, God rules, Sophie. He can see and know everything in one single coherent vision.”

“So he can see us now.”

“Yes, perhaps he can. But not ‘now.’ For God, time does not exist as it does for us. Our ‘now’ is not God’s ‘now.’ Because many weeks pass for us, they do not necessarily pass for God.”

“That’s creepy!” Sophie exclaimed. She put her hand over her mouth. Alberto looked down at her, and Sophie continued: “I got another card from Hilde’s father yesterday. He wrote something like—even if it takes a week or two for Sophie, that doesn’t have to mean it will be that long for us. That’s almost the same as what you said about God!”

Sophie could see a sudden frown flash across Alberto’s face beneath the brown cowl.

“He ought to be ashamed of himself!”

Sophie didn’t quite understand what Alberto meant. He went on: “Unfortunately, Aquinas also adopted Aristotle’s view of women. You may perhaps recall that Aristotle thought a woman was more or less an incomplete man. He also thought that children only inherit the father’s characteristics, since a woman was passive and receptive while the man was active and creative. According to Aquinas, these views harmonized with the message of the Bible—which, for example, tells us that woman was made out of Adam’s rib.”

“Nonsense!”

“It’s interesting to note that the eggs of mammals were not discovered until 1827. It was therefore perhaps not so surprising that people thought it was the man who was the creative and lifegiving force in reproduction. We can moreover note that, according to Aquinas, it is only as nature-being that woman is inferior to man. Woman’s soul is equal to man’s soul. In Heaven there is complete equality of the sexes because all physical gender differences cease to exist.”

“That’s cold comfort. Weren’t there any women philosophers in the Middle Ages?”

“The life of the church in the Middle Ages was heavily dominated by men. But that did not mean that there were no women thinkers. One of them was Hildegard of Bingen...”

Sophie’s eyes widened:

“Does she have anything to do with Hilde?”

“What a question! Hildegard lived as a nun in the Rhine Valley from 1098 to 1179. In spite of being a woman, she worked as preacher, author, physician, botanist, and naturalist. She is an example of the fact that women were often more practical, more scientific even, in the Middle Ages.”

“But what about Hilde?”

“It was an ancient Christian and Jewish belief that God was not only a man. He also had a female side, or ‘mother nature.’ Women, too, are created in God’s likeness. In Greek, this female side of God is called Sophia. ‘Sophia’ or ‘Sophie’ means wisdom.”

Sophie shook her head resignedly. Why had nobody ever told her that? And why had she never asked?

Alberto continued: “Sophia, or God’s mother nature, had a certain significance both for Jews and in the Greek Orthodox Church throughout the Middle Ages. In the west she was forgotten. But along comes Hildegard. Sophia appeared to her in a vision, dressed in a golden tunic adorned with costly jewels ...”

Sophie stood up. Sophia had revealed herself to Hildegard in a vision ...

“Maybe I will appear to Hilde.”

She sat down again. For the third time Alberto laid his hand on her shoulder.

“That is something we must look into. But now it is past eleven o’clock. You must go home, and we are approaching a new era. I shall summon you to a meeting on the Renaissance. Hermes will come get you in the garden.”

With that the strange monk rose and began to walk toward the church. Sophie stayed where she was, thinking about Hildegard and Sophia, Hilde and Sophie. Suddenly she jumped up and ran after the monk-robed philosopher, calling:

“Was there also an Alberto in the Middle Ages?”

Alberto slowed his pace somewhat, turned his head slightly and said, “Aquinas had a famous philosophy teacher called Albert the Great...”

With that he bowed his head and disappeared through the door of St. Mary’s Church.

Sophie was not satisfied with his answer. She followed him into the church. But now it was completely empty. Did he go through the floor?

Just as she was leaving the church she noticed a picture of the Madonna. She went up to it and studied it closely. Suddenly she discovered a little drop of water under one of the Madonna’s eyes. Was it a tear?

Sophie rushed out of the church and hurried back to Joanna’s.

The Renaissance

…O divine lineage in mortal guise…

It was just twelve when Sophie reached Joanna’s front gate, out of breath with running. Joanna was standing in the front yard outside her family’s yellow house.

“You’ve been gone for five hours!” Joanna said sharply.

Sophie shook her head.

“No, I’ve been gone for more than a thousand years.”

“Where on earth have you been? You’re crazy. Your mom called half an hour ago.”

“What did you tell her?”

“I said you were at the drugstore. She said would you call her when you got back. But you should have seen my mom and dad when they came in with hot chocolate and rolls at ten this morning ... and your bed was empty.”

“What did you say to them?”

“It was really embarrassing. I told them you went home because we got mad at each other.”

“So we’d better hurry up and be friends again. And we have to make sure your parents don’t talk to my mom for a few days. Do you think we can do that?”

Joanna shrugged. Just then her father came around the corner with a wheelbarrow. He had a pair of coveralls on and was busy clearing up last year’s leaves and twigs.

“Aha—so you’re friends again, I see. Well, there’s not so much as a single leaf left on the basement steps now.”

“Fine,” said Sophie. “So perhaps we can have our hot chocolate there instead of in bed.”

Joanna’s dad gave a forced laugh, but Joanna gasped. Verbal exchanges had always been more robust in Sophie’s family than at the more well-to-do home of Mr. Ingebrigtsen, the financial adviser, and his wife.

“I’m sorry, Joanna, but I felt I ought to take part in this cover-up operation as well.”

“Are you going to tell me about it?”

“Sure, if you walk home with me. Because it’s not for the ears of financial advisers or overgrown Barbie dolls.”

“That’s a rotten thing to say! I suppose you think a rocky marriage that drives one of the partners away to sea is better?”

“Probably not. But I hardly slept last night. And another thing, I’ve begun to wonder whether Hilde can see everything we do.”

They began to walk toward Clover Close.

“You mean she might have second sight?”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

Joanna was clearly not enthusiastic about all this secrecy.

“But that doesn’t explain why her father sent a lot of crazy postcards to an empty cabin in the woods.”

“I admit that is a weak spot.”

“Do you want to tell me where you have been?”

So she did. Sophie told her everything, about the mysterious philosophy course as well. She made Joanna swear to keep everything secret.

They walked for a long time without speaking. As they approached Clover Close, Joanna said, “I don’t like it.”

She stopped at Sophie’s gate and turned to go home again.

“Nobody asked you to like it. But philosophy is not a harmless party game. It’s about who we are and where we come from. Do you think we learn enough about that at school?”

“Nobody can answer questions like that anyway.”

“Yes, but we don’t even learn to ask them!”

Lunch was on the table when Sophie walked into the kitchen. Nothing was said about her not having called from Joanna’s.

After lunch Sophie announced that she was going to take a nap. She admitted she had hardly slept at Joanna’s house, which was not at all unusual at a sleepover.

Before getting into bed she stood in front of the big brass mirror which now hung on her wall. At first she only saw her own white and exhausted face. But then— behind her own face, the faintest suggestion of another face seemed to appear. Sophie took one or two deep breaths. It was no good starting to imagine things.

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.

Sophie sat down on the edge of the bed. She had absolutely no doubt that it was Hilde she had seen in the mirror. She had caught a glimpse of her picture on a school I.D. in the major’s cabin. It must have been the same girl she had seen in the mirror.

Wasn’t it odd, how she always experienced mysterious things like this when she was dead tired. It meant that afterward she always had to ask herself whether it really had happened.

Sophie laid her clothes on the chair and crawled into bed. She fell asleep at once and had a strangely vivid dream.

She dreamed she was standing in a large garden that sloped down to a red boathouse. On the dock behind it sat a young fair-haired girl gazing out over the water. Sophie walked down and sat beside her. But the girl seemed not to notice her. Sophie introduced herself. “I’m Sophie,” she said. But the other girl could apparently neither see nor hear her. Suddenly Sophie heard a voice calling, “Hilde!” At once the girl jumped up from where she was sitting and ran as fast as she could up to the house. She couldn’t have been deaf or blind after all. A middle-aged man came striding from the house toward her. He was wearing a khaki uniform and a blue beret. The girl threw her arms around his neck and he swung her around a few times. Sophie noticed a little gold crucifix on a chain lying on the dock where the girl had been sitting. She picked it up and held it in her hand. Then she woke up.

Sophie looked at the clock. She had been asleep for two hours. She sat up in bed, thinking about the strange dream. It was so real that she felt as if she had actually lived the experience. She was equally sure that the house and the dock really existed somewhere. Surely it resembled the picture she had seen hanging in the major’s cabin? Anyway, there was no doubt at all that the girl in her dream was Hilde Moller Knag and that the man was her father, home from Lebanon. In her dream he had looked a lot like Alberto Knox ...

As Sophie stood up and began to tidy her bed, she found a gold crucifix on a chain under her pillow. On the back of the crucifix there were three letters engraved: HMK.

This was not the first time Sophie had dreamed she found a treasure. But this was definitely the first time she had brought it back from the dream.

“Damn!” she said aloud.

She was so mad that she opened the closet door and hurled the delicate crucifix up onto the top shelf with the silk scarf, the white stocking, and the postcards from Lebanon.

The next morning Sophie woke up to a big breakfast of hot rolls, orange juice, eggs, and vegetable salad. It was not often that her mother was up before Sophie on a Sunday morning. When she was, she liked to fix a solid meal for Sophie.

While they were eating, Mom said, “There’s a strange dog in the garden. It’s been sniffing round the old hedge all morning. I can’t imagine what it’s doing here, can you?”

“Yes!” Sophie burst out, and at once regretted it.

“Has it been here before?”

Sophie had already left the table and gone into the living room to look out of the window facing the large garden. It was just as she thought.

Hermes was lying in front of the secret entrance to her den.

What should she say? She had no time to think of anything before her mother came and stood beside her.

“Did you say it had been here before?” she asked.

“I expect it buried a bone there and now it’s come to fetch its treasure. Dogs have memories too ...”

“Maybe you’re right, Sophie. You’re the animal psychologist in the family.”

Sophie thought feverishly.

“I’ll take it home,” she said.

“You know where it lives, then?”

Sophie shrugged her shoulders.

“It’s probably got an address on its collar.”

A couple of minutes later Sophie was on her way down the garden. When Hermes caught sight of her he came lolloping toward her, wagging his tail and jumping up to her.

“Good boy, Hermes!” said Sophie.

She knew her mother was watching from the window. She prayed he would not go through the hedge. But the dog dashed toward the gravel path in front of the house, streaked across the front yard, and jumped up to the gate.

When they had shut the gate behind them, Hermes continued to run a few yards in front of Sophie. It was a long way. Sophie and Hermes were not the only ones out for a Sunday walk. Whole families were setting off for the day. Sophie felt a pang of envy.

From time to time Hermes would run off and sniff at another dog or at something interesting by a garden hedge, but as soon as Sophie called “Here, boy!” he would come back to her at once.

They crossed an old pasture, a large playing field, and a playground, and emerged into an area with more traffic. They continued toward the town center along a broad street with cobbled stones and streetcars. Hermes led the way across the town square and up Church Street. They came out into the Old Town, with its massive staid town houses from the turn of the century. It was almost half past one.

Now they were on the other side of town. Sophie had not been there very often. Once when she was little, she remembered, she had been taken to visit an old aunt in one of these streets.

Eventually they reached a little square between several old houses. It was called New Square, although it all looked very old. But then the whole town was old; it had been founded way back in the Middle Ages.

Hermes walked toward No. 14, where he stood still and waited for Sophie to open the door. Her heart began to beat faster.

Inside the front door there were a number of green mailboxes attached to a panel. Sophie noticed a postcard hanging from one of the mailboxes in the top row. It had a stamped message from the mailman across it to the effect that the addressee was unknown.

The addressee was Hilde Moller Knag, 14 New Square. It was postmarked June 15. That was not for two weeks, but the mailman had obviously not noticed that.

Sophie took the card down and read it:

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. One generation ages while another generation is brought forth. In the meantime history takes its course. Have you ever thought that the history of Europe is like a human life? Antiquity is like the childhood of Europe. Then come the interminable Middle Ages—Europe’s schoolday. But at last comes the Renaissance; the long school-day is over. Europe comes of age in a burst of exuberance and a thirst for life. We could say that the Renaissance is Europe’s fifteenth birthday! It is mid-June, my child, and it is wonderful to be alive!

P.S. Sorry to hear you lost your gold crucifix. You must learn to take better care of your things. Love, Dad—who is just around the corner.

Hermes was already on his way up the stairs. Sophie took the postcard with her and followed. She had to run to keep up with him; he was wagging his tail delightedly. They passed the second, third, and fourth stories. From then on there was only an attic staircase. Were they going up to the roof? Hermes clambered on up the stairs and stopped outside a narrow door, which he scratched at with his paw.

Sophie heard footsteps approaching from inside. The door opened, and there stood Alberto Knox. He had changed his clothes and was now wearing another costume. It consisted of white hose, red knee-breeches, and a yellow jacket with padded shoulders. He reminded Sophie of a joker in a deck of cards. If she was not much mistaken, this was a typical Renaissance costume.

“What a clown!” Sophie exclaimed, giving him a little push so that she could go inside the apartment.

Once again she had taken out her fear and shyness on the unfortunate philosophy teacher. Sophie’s thoughts were in a turmoil because of the postcard she had found down in the hallway.

“Be calm, my child,” said Alberto, closing the door behind her.

“And here’s the mail,” she said, handing him the postcard as if she held him responsible for it.

Alberto read it and shook his head.

“He gets more and more audacious. I wouldn’t be surprised if he isn’t using us as a kind of birthday diversion for his daughter.”

With that he tore the postcard into small pieces and threw them into the wastepaper basket.

“It said that Hilde has lost her crucifix,” said Sophie.

“So I read.”

“And I found it, the same one, under my pillow at home. Can you understand how it got there?”

Alberto looked gravely into her eyes.

“It may seem alluring. But it’s just a cheap trick that costs him no effort whatsoever. Let us rather concentrate on the big white rabbit that is pulled out of the universe’s top hat.”

They went into the living room. It was one of the most extraordinary rooms Sophie had ever seen.

Alberto lived in a spacious attic apartment with sloping walls. A sharp light directly from the sky flooded the room from a skylight set into one of the walls. There was also another window facing the town. Through this window Sophie could look over all the roofs in the Old Town.

But what amazed Sophie most was all the stuff the room was filled with—furniture and objects from various historical periods. There was a sofa from the thirties, an old desk from the beginning of the century, and a chair that had to be hundreds of years old. But it wasn’t just the furniture. Old objects, either useful or decorative, were jumbled together on shelves and cupboards. There were old clocks and vases, mortars and retorts, knives and dolls, quill pens and bookends, octants and sextants, compasses and barometers. One entire wall was covered with books, but not the sort of books found in most bookstores. The book collection itself was a cross section of the production of many hundreds of years. On the other walls hung drawings and paintings, some from recent decades, but most of them also very old. There were a lot of old charts and maps on the walls too, and as far as Norway was concerned, they were not very accurate.

Sophie stood for several minutes without speaking and took everything in.

“What a lot of old junk you’ve collected,” she said.

“Now then! Just think of how many centuries of history I have preserved in this room. I wouldn’t exactly call it junk.”

“Do you manage an antique shop or something?”

Alberto looked almost pained.

“We can’t all let ourselves be washed away by the tide of history, Sophie. Some of us must tarry in order to gather up what has been left along the river banks.”

“What an odd thing to say.”

“Yes, but none the less true, child. We do not live in our own time alone; we carry our history within us. Don’t forget that everything you see in this room was once brand new. That old sixteenth-century wooden doll might have been made for a five-year-old girl’s birthday. By her old grandfather, maybe... then she became a teenager, then an adult, and then she married. Maybe she had a daughter of her own and gave the doll to her. She grew old, and one day she died. Although she had lived for a very long time, one day she was dead and gone. And she will never return. Actually she was only here for a short visit. But her doll—well, there it is on the shelf.”

“Everything sounds so sad and solemn when you talk like that.”

“Life is both sad and solemn. We are let into a wonderful world, we meet one another here, greet each other—and wander together for a brief moment. Then we lose each other and disappear as suddenly and unreasonably as we arrived.”

“May I ask you something?”

“We’re not playing hide-and-seek any more.”

“Why did you move into the major’s cabin?”

“So that we would not be so far from each other, when we were only talking by letter. I knew the old cabin would be empty.”

“So you just moved in?”

“That’s right. I moved in.”

“Then maybe you can also explain how Hilde’s father knew you were there.”

“If I am right, he knows practically everything.”

“But I still can’t understand at all how you get a mailman to deliver mail in the middle of the woods!”

Alberto smiled archly.

“Even things like that are a pure bagatelle for Hilde’s father. Cheap hocus-pocus, simple sleight of hand. We are living under what is possibly the world’s closest surveillance.”

Sophie could feel herself getting angry.

“If I ever meet him, I’ll scratch his eyes out!”

Alberto walked over and sat down on the sofa. Sophie followed and sank into a deep armchair.

“Only philosophy can bring us closer to Hilde’s father,” Alberto said at last. “Today I shall tell you about the Renaissance.”

“Shoot.”

“Not very long after St. Thomas Aquinas, cracks began to appear in the unifying culture of Christianity. Philosophy and science broke away more and more from the theology of the Church, thus enabling religious life to attain a freer relationship to reasoning. More people now emphasized that we cannot reach God through rationalism because God is in all ways unknowable. The important thing for a man was not to understand the divine mystery but to submit to God’s will.

“As religion and science could now relate more freely to each other, the way was open both to new scientific methods and a new religious fervor. Thus the basis was created for two powerful upheavals in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, namely, the Renaissance and the Reformation.”

“Can we take them one at a time?”

“By the Renaissance we mean the rich cultural development that began in the late fourteenth century. It started in Northern Italy and spread rapidly northward during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.”

“Didn’t you tell me that the word ‘renaissance’ meant rebirth?”

“I did indeed, and that which was to be reborn was the art and culture of antiquity. We also speak of Renaissance humanism, since now, after the long Dark Ages in which every aspect of life was seen through divine light, everything once again revolved around man. ‘Go to the source’ was the motto, and that meant the humanism of antiquity first and foremost.

“It almost became a popular pastime to dig up ancient sculptures and scrolls, just as it became fashionable to learn Greek. The study of Greek humanism also had a pedagogical aim. Reading humanistic subjects provided a ‘classical education’ and developed what may be called human qualities. ‘Horses are born,’ it was said, ‘but human beings are not born—they are formed.’ “

“Do we have to be educated to be human beings?”

“Yes, that was the thought. But before we take a closer look at the ideas of Renaissance humanism, we must say a little about the political and cultural background of the Renaissance.”

Alberto rose from the sofa and began to wander about the room. After a while he paused and pointed to an antique instrument on one of the shelves.

“What is that?” he asked.

“It looks like an old compass.”

“Quite right.”

He then pointed to an ancient firearm hanging on the wall above the sofa.

“And that?”

“An old-fashioned rifle.”

“Exactly—and this?”

Alberto pulled a large book off one of the bookshelves.

“It’s an old book.”

“To be absolutely precise, it is an incunabulum.”

“An incunabulum?”

“Actually, it means ‘cradle.’ The word is used about books printed in the cradle days of printing. That is, before 1500.”

“Is it really that old?”

“That old, yes. And these three discoveries—the compass, firearms, and the printing press—were essential preconditions for this new period we call the Renaissance.”

“You’ll have to explain that a bit more clearly.”

“The compass made it easier to navigate. In other words, it was the basis for the great voyages of discovery. So were firearms in a way. The new weapons gave the Europeans military superiority over American and Asiatic cultures, although firearms were also an important factor in Europe. Printing played an important part in spreading the Renaissance humanists’ new ideas. And the art of printing was, not least, one of the factors that forced the Church to relinquish its former position as sole disseminator of knowledge. New inventions and instruments began to follow thick and fast. One important instrument, for example, was the telescope, which resulted in a completely new basis for astronomy.”

“And finally came rockets and space probes.”

“Now you’re going too fast. But you could say that a process started in the Renaissance finally brought people to the moon. Or for that matter to Hiroshima and Chernobyl. However, it all began with changes on the cultural and economic front. An important condition was the transition from a subsistence economy to a monetary economy. Toward the end of the Middle Ages, cities had developed, with effective trades and a lively commerce of new goods, a monetary economy and banking. A middle class arose which developed a certain freedom with regard to the basic conditions of life. Necessities became something that could be bought for money. This state of affairs rewarded people’s diligence, imagination, and ingenuity. New demands were made on the individual.”

“It’s a bit like the way Greek cities developed two thousand years earlier.”

“Not altogether untrue. I told you how Greek philosophy broke away from the mythological world picture that was linked to peasant culture. In the same way, the Renaissance middle class began to break away from the feudal lords and the power of the church. As this was happening, Greek culture was being rediscovered through a closer contact with the Arabs in Spain and the Byzantine culture in the east.”

“The three diverging streams from antiquity joined into one great river.”

“You are an attentive pupil. That gives you some background on the Renaissance. I shall now tell you about the new ideas.”

“Okay, but I’ll have to go home and eat.”

Alberto sat down on the sofa again. He looked at Sophie.

“Above all else, the Renaissance resulted in a new view of mankind. The humanism of the Renaissance brought a new belief in man and his worth, in striking contrast to the biased medieval emphasis on the sinful nature of man. Man was now considered infinitely great and valuable. One of the central figures of the Renaissance was Marsilio Ficino, who exclaimed: ‘Know thyself, O divine lineage in mortal guise!’ Another central figure, Pica della Mirandola, wrote the Oration on the Dignity of Man, something that would have been unthinkable in the Middle Ages.

“Throughout the whole medieval period, the point of departure had always been God. The humanists of the Renaissance took as their point of departure man himself.”

“But so did the Greek philosophers.”

“That is precisely why we speak of a ‘rebirth’ of antiquity’s humanism. But Renaissance humanism was to an even greater extent characterized by individualism. We are not only human beings, we are unique individuals. This idea could then lead to an almost unrestrained worship of genius. The ideal became what we call the Renaissance man, a man of universal genius embracing all aspects of life, art, and science. The new view of man also manifested itself in an interest in the human anatomy. As in ancient times, people once again began to dissect the dead to discover how the body was constructed. It was imperative both for medical science and for art. Once again it became usual for works of art to depict the nude. High time, after a thousand years of prudery. Man was bold enough to be himself again. There was no longer anything to be ashamed of.”

“It sounds intoxicating,” said Sophie, leaning her arms on the little table that stood between her and the philosopher.

“Undeniably. The new view of mankind led to a whole new outlook. Man did not exist purely for God’s sake. Man could therefore delight in life here and now. And with this new freedom to develop, the possibilities were limitless. The aim was now to exceed all boundaries. This was also a new idea, seen from the Greek humanistic point of view; the humanists of antiquity had emphasized the importance of tranquility, moderation, and restraint.”

“And the Renaissance humanists lost their restraint?”

“They were certainly not especially moderate. They behaved as if the whole world had been reawakened.

They became intensely conscious of their epoch, which is what led them to introduce the term ‘Middle Ages’ to cover the centuries between antiquity and their own time. There was an unrivaled development in all spheres of life. Art and architecture, literature, music, philosophy, and science flourished as never before. I will mention one concrete example. We have spoken of Ancient Rome, which gloried in titles such as the ‘city of cities’ and the ‘hub of the universe.’ During the Middle Ages the city declined, and by 1417 the old metropolis had only 17,000 inhabitants.”

“Not much more than Lillesand, where Hilde lives.”

“The Renaissance humanists saw it as their cultural duty to restore Rome: first and foremost, to begin the construction of the great St. Peter’s Church over the grave of Peter the Apostle. And St. Peter’s Church can boast neither of moderation nor restraint. Many great artists of the Renaissance took part in this building project, the greatest in the world. It began in 1506 and lasted for a hundred and twenty years, and it took another fifty before the huge St. Peter’s Square was completed.”

“It must be a gigantic church!”

“It is over 200 meters long and 130 meters high, and it covers an area of more than 16,000 square meters. But enough about the boldness of Renaissance man. It was also significant that the Renaissance brought with it a new view of nature. The fact that man felt at home in the world and did not consider life solely as a preparation for the hereafter, created a whole new approach to the physical world. Nature was now regarded as a positive thing. Many held the view that God was also present in his creation. If he is indeed infinite, he must be present in everything. This idea is called pantheism. The medieval philosophers had insisted that there is an insurmountable barrier between God and the Creation. It could now be said that nature is divine—and even that it is ‘God’s blossoming.’ Ideas of this kind were not always looked kindly on by the church. The fate of Gior-dano Bruno was a dramatic example of this. Not only did he claim that God was present in nature, he also believed that the universe was infinite in scope. He was punished very severely for his ideas.”

“How?”

“He was burned at the stake in Rome’s Flower Market in the year 1600.”

“How horrible ... and stupid. And you call that humanism?”

“No, not at all. Bruno was the humanist, not his executioners. During the Renaissance, what we call anti-humanism flourished as well. By this I mean the authoritarian power of State and Church. During the Renaissance there was a tremendous thirst for trying witches, burning heretics, magic and superstition, bloody religious wars—and not least, the brutal conquest of America. But humanism has always had a shadow side. No epoch is either purely good or purely evil. Good and evil are twin threads that run through the history of mankind. And often they intertwine. This is not least true of our next key phrase, a new scientific method, another Renaissance innovation which I will tell you about.”

“Was that when they built the first factories?”

“No, not yet. But a precondition for all the technical development that took place after the Renaissance was the new scientific method. By that I mean the completely new approach to what science was. The technical fruits of this method only became apparent later on.”

“What was this new method?”

“Mainly it was a process of investigating nature with our own senses. Since the fourteenth century there had been an increasing number of thinkers who warned against blind faith in old authority, be it religious doctrine or the natural philosophy of Aristotle. There were also warnings against the belief that problems can be solved purely by thinking. An exaggerated belief in the importance of reason had been valid all through the Middle Ages. Now it was said that every investigation of natural phenomena must be based on observation, experience, and experiment. We call this the empirical method.”

“Which means?”

“It only means that one bases one’s knowledge of things on one’s own experience—and not on dusty parchments or figments of the imagination. Empirical science was known in antiquity, but systematic experiments were something quite new.”

“I guess they didn’t have any of the technical apparatus we have today.”

“Of course they had neither calculators nor electronic scales. But they had mathematics and they had scales. And it was now above all imperative to express scientific observations in precise mathematical terms. ‘Measure what can be measured, and make measurable what cannot be measured,’ said the Italian Galileo Galilei, who was one of the most important scientists of the seventeenth century. He also said that the book of nature is written in the language of mathematics.”

“And all these experiments and measurements made new inventions possible.”

“The first phase was a new scientific method. This made the technical revolution itself possible, and the technical breakthrough opened the way for every invention since. You could say that man had begun to break away from his natural condition. Nature was no longer something man was simply a part of. ‘Knowledge is power,’ said the English philosopher Francis Bacon, thereby underlining the practical value of knowledge— and this was indeed new. Man was seriously starting to intervene in nature and beginning to control it.”

“But not only in a good way?”

“No, this is what I was referring to before when I spoke of the good and the evil threads that are constantly intertwined in everything we do. The technical revolution that began in the Renaissance led to the spinning jenny and to unemployment, to medicines and new diseases, to the improved efficiency of agriculture and the impoverishment of the environment, to practical appliances such as the washing machine and the refrigerator and pollution and industrial waste. The serious threat to the environment we are facing today has made many people see the technical revolution itself as a perilous maladjustment to natural conditions. It has been pointed out that we have started something we can no longer control. More optimistic spirits think we are still living in the cradle of technology, and that although the scientific age has certainly had its teething troubles, we will gradually learn to control nature without at the same time threatening its very existence and thus our own.”

“Which do you think?”

“I think perhaps there may be some truth in both views. In some areas we must stop interfering with nature, but in others we can succeed. One thing is certain: There is no way back to the Middle Ages. Ever since the Renaissance, mankind has been more than just part of creation. Man has begun to intervene in nature and form it after his own image. In truth, ‘what a piece of work is man!’ “

“We have already been to the moon. What medieval person would have believed such a thing possible?”

“No, that’s for sure. Which brings us to the new world view. All through the Middle Ages people had stood beneath the sky and gazed up at the sun, the moon, the stars, and the planets. But nobody had doubted that the earth was the center of the universe. No observations had sown any doubt that the earth remained still while the ‘heavenly bodies’ traveled in their orbits around it. We call this the geocentric world picture, or in other words, the belief that everything revolves around the earth. The Christian belief that God ruled from on high, up above all the heavenly bodies, also contributed to maintaining this world picture.”

“I wish it were that simple!”

“But in 1543 a little book was published entitled On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres. It was written by the Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus, who died on the day the book was published. Copernicus claimed that it was not the sun that moved round the earth, it was vice versa. He thought this was completely possible from the observations of the heavenly bodies that existed. The reason people had always believed that the sun went round the earth was that the earth turns on its own axis, he said. He pointed out that all observations of heavenly bodies were far easier to understand if one assumed that both the earth and the other planets circle around the sun. We call this the heliocentric world picture, which means that everything centers around the sun.”

“And that world picture was the right one?”

“Not entirely. His main point—that the earth moves round the sun—is of course correct. But he claimed that the sun was the center of the universe. Today we know that the sun is only one of an infinite number of stars, and that all the stars around us make up only one of many billions of galaxies. Copernicus also believed that the earth and the other planets moved in circular orbits around the sun.”

“Don’t they?”

“No. He had nothing on which to base his belief in the circular orbits other than the ancient idea that heavenly bodies were round and moved in circles simply because they were ‘heavenly.’ Since the time of Plato the sphere and the circle had been considered the most perfect geometrical figures. But in the early 1600s, the German astronomer Johannes Kepler presented the results of comprehensive observations which showed that the planets move in elliptical—or oval—orbits with the sun at one focus. He also pointed out that the speed of a planet is greatest when it is closest to the sun, and that the farther a planet’s orbit is from the sun the slower it moves. Not until Kepler’s time was it actually stated that the earth was a planet just like other planets. Kepler also emphasized that the same physical laws apply everywhere throughout the universe.”

“How could he know that?”

“Because he had investigated the movements of the planets with his own senses instead of blindly trusting ancient superstitions. Galileo Galilei, who was roughly contemporary with Kepler, also used a telescope to observe the heavenly bodies. He studied the moon’s craters and said that the moon had mountains and valleys similar to those on earth. Moreover, he discovered that the planet Jupiter had four moons. So the earth was not alone in having a moon. But the greatest significance of Galileo was that he first formulated the so-called Law of Inertia.”

“And that is?”

“Galileo formulated it thus: A body remains in the state which it is in, at rest or in motion, as long as no external force compels it to change its state.”

“If you say so.”

“But this was a significant observation. Since antiquity, one of the central arguments against the earth moving round its own axis was that the earth would then move so quickly that a stone hurled straight into the air would fall yards away from the spot it was hurled from.”

“So why doesn’t it?”

“If you’re sitting in a train and you drop an apple, it doesn’t fall backward because the train is moving. It falls straight down. That is because of the law of inertia. The apple retains exactly the same speed it had before you dropped it.”

“I think I understand.”

“Now in Galileo’s time there were no trains. But if you roll a ball along the ground—and suddenly let go...”

“... it goes on rolling ...”

“... because it retains its speed after you let go.”

“But it will stop eventually, if the room is long enough.”

“That’s because other forces slow it down. First, the floor, especially if it is a rough wooden floor. Then the force of gravity will sooner or later bring it to a halt. But wait, I’ll show you something.”

Alberto Knox got up and went over to the old desk. He took something out of one of the drawers. When he returned to his place he put it on the coffee table. It was just a wooden board, a few millimeters thick at one end and thin at the other. Beside the board, which almost covered the whole table, he laid a green marble.

“This is called an inclined plane,” he said. “What do you think will happen if I let go the marble up here, where the plane is thickest?”

Sophie sighed resignedly.

“I bet you ten crowns it rolls down onto the table and ends on the floor.”

“Let’s see.”

Alberto let go of the marble and it behaved exactly as Sophie had said. It rolled onto the table, over the tabletop, hit the floor with a little thud and finally bumped into the wall.

“Impressive,” said Sophie.

“Yes, wasn’t it! This was the kind of experiment Galileo did, you see.”

“Was he really that stupid?”

“Patience! He wanted to investigate things with all his senses, so we have only just begun. Tell me first why the marble rolled down the inclined plane.”

“It began to roll because it was heavy.”

“All right. And what is weight actually, child?”

“That’s a silly question.”

“It’s not a silly question if you can’t answer it. Why did the marble roll onto the floor?”

“Because of gravity.”

“Exactly—or gravitation, as we also say. Weight has something to do with gravity. That was the force that set the marble in motion.”

Alberto had already picked the marble up from the floor. He stood bowed over the inclined plane with the marble again.

“Now I shall try to roll the marble across the plane,” he said. “Watch carefully how it moves.”

Sophie watched as the marble gradually curved away and was drawn down the incline.

“What happened?” asked Alberto.

“It rolled sloping because the board is sloping.”

“Now I’m going to brush the marble with ink ... then perhaps we can study exactly what you mean by sloping.”

He dug out an ink brush and painted the whole marble black. Then he rolled it again. Now Sophie could see exactly where on the plane the marble had rolled because it had left a black line on the board.

“How would you describe the marble’s path?”

“It’s curved ... it looks like part of a circle.”

“Precisely.”

Alberto looked up at her and raised his eyebrows.

“However, it is not quite a circle. This figure is called a parabola.”

“That’s fine with me.”

“Ah, but why did the marble travel in precisely that way?”

Sophie thought deeply. Then she said, “Because the board was sloping, the marble was drawn toward the floor by the force of gravity.”-

“Yes, yes! This is nothing less than a sensation! Here I go, dragging a girl who’s not yet fifteen up to my attic, and she realizes exactly the same thing Galileo did after one single experiment!”

He clapped his hands. For a moment Sophie was afraid he had gone mad. He continued: “You saw what happened when two forces worked simultaneously on the same object. Galileo discovered that the same thing applied, for instance, to a cannonball. It is propelled into the air, it continues its path over the earth, but will eventually be drawn toward the earth. So it will have described a trajectory corresponding to the marble’s path across the inclined plane. And this was actually a new discovery at the time of Galileo. Aristotle thought that a projectile hurled obliquely into the air would first describe a gentle curve and then fall vertically to the earth. This was not so, but nobody could know Aristotle was wrong before it had been demonstrated.”

“Does all this really matter?”

“Does it matter? You bet it matters! This has cosmic significance, my child. Of all the scientific discoveries in the history of mankind, this is positively the most important.”

“I’m sure you are going to tell me why.”

“Then along came the English physicist Isaac Newton, who lived from 1642 to 1727. He was the one who provided the final description of the solar system and the planetary orbits. Not only could he describe how the planets moved round the sun, he could also explain why they did so. He was able to do so partly by referring to what we call Galileo’s dynamics.”

“Are the planets marbles on an inclined plane then?”

“Something like that, yes. But wait a bit, Sophie.”

“Do I have a choice?”

“Kepler had already pointed out that there had to be a force that caused the heavenly bodies to attract each other. There had to be, for example, a solar force which held the planets fast in their orbits. Such a force would moreover explain why the planets moved more slowly in their orbit the further away from the sun they traveled. Kepler also believed that the ebb and flow of the tides— the rise and fall in sea level—must be the result of a lunar force.”

“And that’s true.”

“Yes, it’s true. But it was a theory Galileo rejected. He mocked Kepler, who he said had given his approval to the idea that the moon rules the water. That was because Galileo rejected the idea that the forces of gravitation could work over great distances, and also between the heavenly bodies.”

“He was wrong there.”

“Yes. On that particular point he was wrong. And that was funny, really, because he was very preoccupied with the earth’s gravity and falling bodies. He had even indicated how increased force can control the movement of a body.”

“But you were talking about Newton.”

“Yes, along came Newton. He formulated what we call the Law of Universal Gravitation. This law states that every object attracts every other object with a force that increases in proportion to the size of the objects and decreases in proportion to the distance between the objects.”

“I think I understand. For example, there is greater attraction between two elephants than there is between two mice. And there is greater attraction between two elephants in the same zoo than there is between an Indian elephant in India and an African elephant in Africa.”

“Then you have understood it. And now comes the central point. Newton proved that this attraction—or gravitation—is universal, which means it is operative everywhere, also in space between heavenly bodies. He is said to have gotten this idea while he was sitting under an apple tree. When he saw an apple fall from the tree he had to ask himself if the moon was drawn to earth with the same force, and if this was the reason why the moon continued to orbit the earth to all eternity.”

“Smart. But not so smart really.”

“Why not, Sophie?”

“Well, if the moon was drawn to the earth with the same force that causes the apple to fall, one day the moon would come crashing to earth instead of going round and round it for ever.”

“Which brings us to Newton’s law on planetary orbits. In the case of how the earth attracts the moon, you are fifty percent right but fifty percent wrong. Why doesn’t the moon fall to earth? Because it really is true that the earth’s gravitational force attracting the moon is tremendous. Just think of the force required to lift sea level a meter or two at high tide.”

“I don’t think I understand.”

“Remember Galileo’s inclined plane. What happened when I rolled the marble across it?”

“Are there two different forces working on the moon?”

“Exactly. Once upon a time when the solar system began, the moon was hurled outward—outward from the earth, that is—with tremendous force. This force will remain in effect forever because it moves in a vacuum without resistance...”

“But it is also attracted to the earth because of earth’s gravitational force, isn’t it?”

“Exactly. Both forces are constant, and both work simultaneously. Therefore the moon will continue to orbit the earth.”

“Is it really as simple as that?”

“As simple as that, and this very same simplicity was Newton’s whole point. He demonstrated that a few natural laws apply to the whole universe. In calculating the planetary orbits he had merely applied two natural laws which Galileo had already proposed. One was the law of inertia, which Newton expressed thus: ‘A body remains in its state of rest or rectilinear motion until it is compelled to change that state by a force impressed on it.’ The other law had been demonstrated by Galileo on an inclined plane: When two forces work on a body simultaneously, the body will move on an elliptical path.”

“And that’s how Newton could explain why all the planets go round the sun.”

“Yes. All the planets travel in elliptical orbits round the sun as the result of two unequal movements: first, the rectilinear movement they had when the solar system was formed, and second, the movement toward the sun due to gravitation.”

“Very clever.”

“Very. Newton demonstrated that the same laws of moving bodies apply everywhere in the entire universe. He thus did away with the medieval belief that there is one set of laws for heaven and another here on earth. The heliocentric world view had found its final confirmation and its final explanation.”

Alberto got up and put the inclined plane away again. He picked up the marble and placed it on the table between them.

Sophie thought it was amazing how much they had gotten out of a bit of slanting wood and a marble. As she looked at the green marble, which was still smudged with ink, she couldn’t help thinking of the earth’s globe. She said, “And people just had to accept that they were living on a random planet somewhere in space?”

“Yes—the new world view was in many ways a great burden. The situation was comparable to what happened later on when Darwin proved that mankind had developed from animals. In both cases mankind lost some of its special status in creation. And in both cases the Church put up a massive resistance.”

“I can well understand that. Because where was God in all this new stuff? It was simpler when the earth was the center and God and the planets were upstairs.”

“But that was not the greatest challenge. When Newton had proved that the same natural laws applied everywhere in the universe, one might think that he thereby undermined people’s faith in God’s omnipotence. But Newton’s own faith was never shaken. He regarded the natural laws as proof of the existence of the great and almighty God. It’s possible that man’s picture of himself fared worse.”

“How do you mean?”

“Since the Renaissance, people have had to get used to living their life on a random planet in the vast galaxy. I am not sure we have wholly accepted it even now. But there were those even in the Renaissance who said that every single one of us now had a more central position than before.”

“I don’t quite understand.”

“Formerly, the earth was the center of the world. But since astronomers now said that there was no absolute center to the universe, it came to be thought that there were just as many centers as there were people. Each person could be the center of a universe.”

“Ah, I think I see.”

“The Renaissance resulted in a new religiosity. As philosophy and science gradually broke away from theology, a new Christian piety developed. Then the Renaissance arrived with its new view of man. This had its effect on religious life. The individual’s personal relationship to God was now more important than his relationship to the church as an organization.”

“Like saying one’s prayers at night, for instance?”

“Yes, that too. In the medieval Catholic Church, the church’s liturgy in Latin and the church’s ritual prayers had been the backbone of the religious service. Only priests and monks read the Bible because it only existed in Latin. But during the Renaissance, the Bible was translated from Hebrew and Greek into national languages. It was central to what we call the Reformation.”

“Martin Luther...”

“Yes, Martin Luther was important, but he was not the only reformer. There were also ecclesiastical reformers who chose to remain within the Roman Catholic church. One of them was Erasmus of Rotterdam.”

“Luther broke with the Catholic Church because he wouldn’t buy indulgences, didn’t he?”

“Yes, that was one of the reasons. But there was a more important reason. According to Luther, people did not need the intercession of the church or its priests in order to receive God’s forgiveness. Neither was God’s forgiveness dependent on the buying of ‘indulgences’ from the church. Trading in these so-called letters of indulgence was forbidden by the Catholic Church from the middle of the sixteenth century.”

“God was probably glad of that.”

“In general, Luther distanced himself from many of the religious customs and dogmas that had become rooted in ecclesiastical history during the Middle Ages. He wanted to return to early Christianity as it was in the New Testament. The Scripture alone,’ he said. With this slogan Luther wished to return to the ‘source’ of Christianity, just as the Renaissance humanists had wanted to turn to the ancient sources of art and culture. Luther translated the Bible into German, thereby founding the German written language. He believed every man should be able to read the Bible and thus in a sense become his own priest.”

“His own priest? Wasn’t that taking it a bit far?”

“What he meant was that priests had no preferential position in relation to God. The Lutheran congregations employed priests for practical reasons, such as conducting services and attending to the daily clerical tasks, but Luther did not believe that anyone received God’s forgiveness and redemption from sin through church rituals. Man received ‘free’ redemption through faith alone, he said. This was a belief he arrived at by reading the Bible.”

“So Luther was also a typical Renaissance man?”

“Yes and no. A characteristic Renaissance feature was his emphasis on the individual and the individual’s personal relationship to God. So he taught himself Greek at the age of thirty-five and began the laborious job of translating the Bible from the ancient Greek version into German. Allowing the language of the people to take precedence over Latin was also a characteristic Renaissance feature. But Luther was not a humanist like Ficino or Leonardo da Vinci. He was also opposed by humanists such as Erasmus of Rotterdam because they thought his view of man was far too negative; Luther had proclaimed that mankind was totally depraved after the Fall from Grace. Only through the grace of God could mankind be ‘justified,’ he believed. For the wages of sin is death.”

“That sounds very gloomy.”

Alberto Knox rose. He picked up the little green and black marble and put it in his top pocket.

“It’s after four!” Sophie exclaimed in horror.

“And the next great epoch in the history of mankind is the Baroque. But we shall have to keep that for another day, my dear Hilde.”

“What did you say?” Sophie shot up from the chair she had been sitting in. “You called me Hilde!”

“That was a serious slip of the tongue.”

“But a slip of the tongue is never wholly accidental.”

“You may be right. You’ll notice that Hilde’s father has begun to put words in our mouths. I think he is exploiting the fact that we are getting weary and are not defending ourselves very well.”

“You said once that you are not Hilde’s father. Is that really true?”

Alberto nodded.

“But am I Hilde?”

“I’m tired now, Sophie. You have to understand that. We have been sitting here for over two hours, and I have been doing most of the talking. Don’t you have to go home to eat?”

Sophie felt almost as if he was trying to throw her out. As she went into the little hall, she thought intensely about why he had made that slip. Alberto came out after her.

Hermes was lying asleep under a small row of pegs on which hung several strange-looking garments that could have been theatrical costumes. Alberto nodded toward the dog and said, “He will come and fetch you.”

“Thank you for my lesson,” said Sophie.

She gave Alberto an impulsive hug. “You’re the best and kindest philosophy teacher I’ve ever had,” she said.

With that she opened the door to the staircase. As the door closed, Alberto said, “It won’t be long before we meet again, Hilde.”

Sophie was left with those words.

Another slip of the tongue, the villain! Sophie had a strong desire to turn around and hammer on the door but something held her back.

On reaching the street she remembered that she had no money on her. She would have to walk all the long way home. How annoying! Her mother would be both angry and worried if she didn’t get back by six, that was for sure.

She had not gone more than a few yards when she suddenly noticed a coin on the sidewalk. It was ten crowns, exactly the price of a bus ticket.

Sophie found her way to the bus stop and waited for a bus to the Main Square. From there she could take a bus on the same ticket and ride almost to her door.

Not until she was standing at the Main Square waiting for the second bus did she begin to wonder why she had been lucky enough to find the coin just when she needed it.

Could Hilde’s father have left it there? He was a master at leaving things in the most convenient places.

How could he, if he was in Lebanon?

And why had Alberto made that slip? Not once but twice!

Sophie shivered. She felt a chill run down her spine.

The Baroque

…such stuff as dreams are made on…

Sophie heard nothing more from Alberto for several days, but she glanced frequently into the garden hoping to catch sight of Hermes. She told her mother that the dog had found its own way home and that she had been invited in by its owner, a former physics teacher. He had told Sophie about the solar system and the new science that developed in the sixteenth century.

She told Joanna more. She told her all about her visit to Alberto, the postcard in the mailbox, and the ten-crown piece she had found on the way home. She kept the dream about Hilde and the gold crucifix to herself.

On Tuesday, May 29, Sophie was standing in the kitchen doing the dishes. Her mother had gone into the living room to watch the TV news. When the opening theme faded out she heard from the kitchen that a major in the Norwegian UN Battalion had been killed by a shell.

Sophie threw the dish towel on the table and rushed into the living room. She was just in time to catch a glimpse of the UN officer’s face for a few seconds before they switched to the next item.

“Oh no!” she cried.

Her mother turned to her.

“Yes, war is a terrible thing!”

Sophie burst into tears.

“But Sophie, it’s not that bad!”

“Did they say his name?”

“Yes, but I don’t remember it. He was from Grimstad, I think.”

“Isn’t that the same as Lillesand?”

“No, you’re being silly.”

“But if you come from Grimstad, you might go to school in Lillesand.”

She had stopped crying, but now it was her mother’s turn to react. She got out of her chair and switched off the TV.

“What’s going on, Sophie?”

“Nothing.”

“Yes, there is. You have a boyfriend, and I’m beginning to think he’s much older than you. Answer me now: Do you know a man in Lebanon?”

“No, not exactly...”

“Have you met the son of someone in Lebanon?”

“No, I haven’t. I haven’t even met his daughter.”

“Whose daughter?”

“It’s none of your business.”

“I think it is.”

“Maybe I should start asking some questions instead. Why is Dad never home? Is it because you haven’t got the guts to get a divorce? Maybe you’ve got a boyfriend you don’t want Dad and me to know about and so on and so on. I’ve got plenty of questions of my own.”

“I think we need to talk.”

“That may be. But right now I’m so worn out I’m going to bed. And I’m getting my period.”

Sophie ran up to her room; she felt like crying.

As soon as she was through in the bathroom and had curled up under the covers, her mother came into the bedroom.

Sophie pretended to be asleep even though she knew her mother wouldn’t believe it. She knew her mother knew that Sophie knew her mother wouldn’t believe it either. Nevertheless her mother pretended to believe that Sophie was asleep. She sat on the edge of Sophie’s bed and stroked her hair.

Sophie was thinking how complicated it was to live two lives at the same time. She began to look forward to the end of the philosophy course. Maybe it would be over by her birthday—or at least by Midsummer Eve, when Hilde’s father would be home from Lebanon ...

“I want to have a birthday party,” she said suddenly.

“That sounds great. Who will you invite?”

“Lots of people ... Can I?”

“Of course. We have a big garden. Hopefully the good weather will continue.”

“Most of all I’d like to have it on Midsummer Eve.”

“All right, that’s what we’ll do.”

“It’s a very important day,” Sophie said, thinking not only of her birthday.

“It is, indeed.”

“I feel I’ve grown up a lot lately.”

“That’s good, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know.”

Sophie had been talking with her head almost buried in her pillow. Now her mother said, “Sophie—you must tell me why you seem so out of balance at the moment.”

“Weren’t you like this when you were fifteen?”

“Probably. But you know what I am talking about.”

Sophie suddenly turned to face her mother. “The dog’s name is Hermes,” she said.

“It is?”

“It belongs to a man called Alberto.”

“I see.”

“He lives down in the Old Town.”

“You went all that way with the dog?”

“There’s nothing dangerous about that.”

“You said that the dog had often been here.”

“Did I say that?”

She had to think now. She wanted to tell as much as possible, but she couldn’t tell everything.

“You’re hardly ever at home,” she ventured.

“No, I’m much too busy.”

“Alberto and Hermes have been here lots of times.”

“What for? Were they in the house as well?”

“Can’t you at least ask one question at a time? They haven’t been in the house. But they often go for walks in the woods. Is that so mysterious?”

“No, not in the least.”

“They walk past our gate like everyone else when they go for a walk. One day when I got home from school I talked to the dog. That’s how I got to know Alberto.”

“What about the white rabbit and all that stuff?”

“That was something Alberto said. He is a real philosopher, you see. He has told me about all the philosophers.”

“Just like that, over the hedge?”

“He has also written letters to me, lots of times, actually. Sometimes he has sent them by mail and other times he has just dropped them in the mailbox on his way out for a walk.”

“So that was the ‘love letter’ we talked about.”

“Except that it wasn’t a love letter.”

“And he only wrote about philosophy?”

“Yes, can you imagine! And I’ve learned more from him than I have learned in eight years of school. For instance, have you ever heard of Giordano Bruno, who was burned at the stake in 1600? Or of Newton’s Law of Universal Gravitation?”

“No, there’s a lot I don’t know.”

“I bet you don’t even know why the earth orbits the sun—and it’s your own planet!”

“About how old is this man?”

“I have no idea—about fifty, probably.”

“But what is his connection with Lebanon?”

This was a tough one. Sophie thought hard. She chose the most likely story.

“Alberto has a brother who’s a major in the UN Battalion. And he’s from Lillesand. Maybe he’s the major who once lived in the major’s cabin.”

“Alberto’s a funny kind of name, isn’t it?”

“Perhaps.”

“It sounds Italian.”

“Well, nearly everything that’s important comes either from Greece or from Italy.”

“But he speaks Norwegian?”

“Oh yes, fluently.”

“You know what, Sophie—I think you should invite

Alberto home one day. I have never met a real philosopher.”

“We’ll see.”

“Maybe we could invite him to your birthday party? It could be such fun to mix the generations. Then maybe I could come too. At least, I could help with the serving. Wouldn’t that be a good idea?”

“If he will. At any rate, he’s more interesting to talk to than the boys in my class. It’s just that...”

“What?”

“They’d probably flip and think Alberto was my new boyfriend.”

“Then you just tell them he isn’t.”

“Well, we’ll have to see.”

“Yes, we shall. And Sophie—it is true that things haven’t always been easy between Dad and me. But there was never anyone else ...”

“I have to sleep now. I’ve got such awful cramps.”

“Do you want an aspirin?” /’Yes, please.”

When her mother returned with the pill and a glass of water Sophie had fallen asleep.

May 31 was a Thursday. Sophie agonized through the afternoon classes at school. She was doing better in some subjects since she started on the philosophy course. Usually her grades were good in most subjects, but lately they were even better, except in math.

In the last class they got an essay handed back. Sophie had written on “Man and Technology.” She had written reams on the Renaissance and the scientific breakthrough, the new view of nature and Francis Bacon, who had said that knowledge was power. She had been very careful to point out that the empirical method came before the technological discoveries. Then she had written about some of the things she could think of about technology that were not so good for society. She ended with a paragraph on the fact that everything people do can be used for good or evil. Good and evil are like a white and a black thread that make up a single strand.

Sometimes they are so closely intertwined that it is impossible to untangle them.

As the teacher gave out the exercise books he looked down at Sophie and winked.

She got an A and the comment: “Where do you get all this from?” As he stood there, she took out a pen and wrote with block letters in the margin of her exercise book: I’M STUDYING PHILOSOPHY.

As she was closing the exercise book again, something fell out of it. It was a postcard from Lebanon:

Dear Hilde, When you read this we shall already have spoken together by phone about the tragic death down here. Sometimes I ask myself if war could have been avoided if people had been a bit better at thinking. Perhaps the best remedy against violence would be a short course in philosophy. What about “the UN’s little philosophy book”— which all new citizens of the world could be given a copy of in their own language. I’ll propose the idea to the UN General Secretary.

You said on the phone that you were getting better at looking after your things. I’m glad, because you’re the untidiest creature I’ve ever met. Then you said the only thing you’d lost since we last spoke was ten crowns. I’ll do what I can to help you find it. Although I am far away, I have a helping hand back home. (If I find the money I’ll put it in with your birthday present.) Love, Dad, who feels as if he’s already started the long trip home.

Sophie had just managed to finish reading the card when the last bell rang. Once again her thoughts were in turmoil.

Joanna was waiting in the playground. On the way home Sophie opened her schoolbag and showed Joanna the latest card.

“When is it postmarked?” asked Joanna.

“Probably June 15 ...”

“No, look ... 5/30/90, it says.”

“That was yesterday ... the day after the death of the major in Lebanon.”

“I doubt if a postcard from Lebanon can get to Norway in one day,” said Joanna.

“Especially not considering the rather unusual address: Hilde Moller Knag, c/o Sophie Amundsen, Fu-rulia Junior High School...”

“Do you think it could have come by mail? And the teacher just popped it in your exercise book?”

“No idea. I don’t know whether I dare ask either.”

No more was said about the postcard.

“I’m going to have a garden party on Midsummer Eve,” said Sophie.

“With boys?”

Sophie shrugged her shoulders. “We don’t have to invite the worst idiots.”

“But you are going to invite Jeremy?”

“If you want. By the way, I might invite Alberto Knox.”

“You must be crazy!”

“I know.”

That was as far as the conversation got before their ways parted at the supermarket.

The first thing Sophie did when she got home was to see if Hermes was in the garden. Sure enough, there he was, sniffing around the apple trees.

“Hermes!”

The dog stood motionless for a second. Sophie knew exactly what was going on in that second: the dog heard her call, recognized her voice, and decided to see if she was there. Then, discovering her, he began to run toward her. Finally all four legs came pattering like drumsticks.

That was actually quite a lot in the space of one second.

He dashed up to her, wagged his tail wildly, and jumped up to lick her face.

“Hermes, clever boy! Down, down. No, stop slobbering all over me. Heel, boy! That’s it!”

Sophie let herself into the house. Sherekan came jumping out from the bushes. He was rather wary of the stranger. Sophie put his cat food out, poured birdseed in the budgerigars’ cup, got out a salad leaf for the tortoise, and wrote a note to her mother.

She wrote that she was going to take Hermes home and would be back by seven.

They set off through the town. Sophie had remembered to take some money with her this time. She wondered whether she ought to take the bus with Hermes, but decided she had better wait and ask Alberto about it.

While she walked on and on behind Hermes she thought about what an animal really is.

What was the difference between a dog and a person? She recalled Aristotle’s words. He said that people and animals are both natural living creatures with a lot of characteristics in common. But there was one distinct difference between people and animals, and that was human reasoning.

How could he have been so sure?

Democritus, on the other hand, thought people and animals were really rather alike because both were made up of atoms. And he didn’t think that either people or animals had immortal souls. According to him, souls were built up of atoms that are spread to the winds when people die. He was the one who thought a person’s soul was inseparably bound to the brain.

But how could the soul be made of atoms? The soul wasn’t anything you could touch like the rest of the body. It was something “spiritual.”

They were already beyond Main Square and were approaching the Old Town. When they got to the sidewalk where Sophie had found the ten crowns, she looked automatically down at the asphalt. And there, on exactly the same spot where she had bent down and picked up the money, lay a postcard with the picture side up. The picture showed a garden with palms and orange trees.

Sophie bent down and picked up the card. Hermes started growling as if he didn’t like Sophie touching it.

The card read:

Dear Hilde, Life consists of a long chain of coincidences. It is not altogether unlikely that the ten crowns you lost turned up right here. Maybe it was found on the square in Lillesand by an old lady who was waiting for the bus to Kristiansand. From Kris-tiansand she took the train to visit her grandchildren, and many, many hours later she lost the coin here on New Square. It is then perfectly possible that the very same coin was picked up later on that day by a girl who really needed it to get home by bus. You never can tell, Hilde, but if it is truly so, then one must certainly ask whether or not God’s providence is behind everything. Love, Dad, who in spirit is sitting on the dock at home in Lillesand. P.S. I said I would help you find the ten crowns.

On the address side it said: “Hilde Moller Knag, c/o a casual passer-by...” The postmark was stamped 6/15/90.

Sophie ran up the stairs after Hermes. As soon as Alberto opened the door, she said:

“Out of my way. Here comes the mailman.”

She felt she had every reason to be annoyed. Alberto stood aside as she barged in. Hermes laid himself down under the coat pegs as before.

“Has the major presented another visiting card, my child?”

Sophie looked up at him and discovered that he was wearing a different costume. He had put on a long curled wig and a wide, baggy suit with a mass of lace. He wore a loud silk scarf at his throat, and on top of the suit he had thrown a red cape. He also wore white stockings and thin patent leather shoes with bows. The whole costume reminded Sophie of pictures she had seen of the court of Louis XIV.

“You clown!” she said and handed him the card.

“Hm ... and you really found ten crowns on the same spot where he planted the card?”

“Exactly.”

“He gets ruder all the time. But maybe it’s just as well.”

“Why?”

“It’ll make it easier to unmask him. But this trick was both pompous and tasteless. It almost stinks of cheap perfume.”

“Perfume?”

“It tries to be elegant but is really a sham. Can’t you see how he has the effrontery to compare his own shabby surveillance of us with God’s providence?”

He held up the card. Then he tore it to pieces. So as not to make his mood worse she refrained from mentioning the card that fell out of her exercise book at school.

“Let’s go in and sit down. What time is it?”

“Four o’clock.”

“And today we are going to talk about the seventeenth century.”

They went into the living room with the sloping walls and the skylight. Sophie noticed that Alberto had put different objects out in place of some of those she had seen last time.

On the coffee table was a small antique casket containing an assorted collection of lenses for eyeglasses. Beside it lay an open book. It looked really old.

“What is that?” Sophie asked.

“It is a first edition of the book of Descartes’s philosophical essays published in 1637 in which his famous Discourse on Method originally appeared, and one of my most treasured possessions.”

“And the casket?”

“It holds an exclusive collection of lenses—or optical glass. They were polished by the Dutch philosopher Spinoza sometime during the mid-1600s. They were extremely costly and are also among my most valued treasures.”

“I would probably understand better how valuable these things are if I knew who Spinoza and Descartes were.”

“Of course. But first let us try to familiarize ourselves with the period they lived in. Have a seat.”

They sat in the same places as before, Sophie in the big armchair and Alberto Knox on the sofa. Between them was the coffee table with the book and the casket. Alberto removed his wig and laid it on the writing desk.

“We are going to talk about the seventeenth century—or what we generally refer to as the Baroque period.”

“The Baroque period? What a strange name.”

“The word ‘baroque’ comes from a word that was first used to describe a pearl of irregular shape. Irregularity was typical of Baroque art, which was much richer in highly contrastive forms than the plainer and more harmonious Renaissance art. The seventeenth century was on the whole characterized by tensions between irreconcilable contrasts. On the one hand there was the Renaissance’s unremitting optimism—and on the other hand there were the many who sought the opposite extreme in a life of religious seclusion and self-denial. Both in art and in real life, we meet pompous and flamboyant forms of self-expression, while at the same time there arose a monastic movement, turning away from the world.”

“Both proud palaces and remote monasteries, in other words.”

“Yes, you could certainly say that. One of the Baroque period’s favorite sayings was the Latin expression ‘carpe diem’—‘seize the day.’ Another Latin expression that was widely quoted was ‘memento mori,’ which means ‘Remember that you must die.’ In art, a painting could depict an extremely luxurious lifestyle, with a little skull painted in one corner.

“In many senses, the Baroque period was characterized by vanity or affectation. But at the same time a lot of people were concerned with the other side of the coin; they were concerned with the ephemeral nature of things. That is, the fact that all the beauty that surrounds us must one day perish.”

“It’s true. It is sad to realize that nothing lasts.”

“You think exactly as many people did in the seventeenth century. The Baroque period was also an age of conflict in a political sense. Europe was ravaged by wars. The worst was the Thirty Years’ War which raged over most of the continent from 1618 to 1648. In reality it was a series of wars which took a particular toll on Germany. Not least as a result of the Thirty Years’ War,

France gradually became the dominant power in Europe.”

“What were the wars about?”

“To a great extent they were wars between Protestants and Catholics. But they were also about political power.”

“More or less like in Lebanon.”

“Apart from wars, the seventeenth century was a time of great class differences. I’m sure you have heard of the French aristocracy and the Court of Versailles. I don’t know whether you have heard much about the poverty of the French people. But any display of magnificence presupposes a display of power. It has often been said that the political situation in the Baroque period was not unlike its art and architecture. Baroque buildings were typified by a lot of ornate nooks and crannies. In a somewhat similar fashion the political situation was typified by intrigue, plotting, and assassinations.”

“Wasn’t a Swedish king shot in a theater?”

“You’re thinking of Gustav III, a good example of the sort of thing I mean. The assassination of Gustav III wasn’t until 1792, but the circumstances were quite baroque. He was murdered while attending a huge masked ball.”

“I thought he was at the theater.”

“The great masked ball was held at the Opera. We could say that the Baroque period in Sweden came to an end with the murder of Gustav III. During his time there had been a rule of ‘enlightened despotism,’ similar to that in the reign of Louis XIV almost a hundred years earlier. Gustav III was also an extremely vain person who adored all French ceremony and courtesies. He also loved the theater...”

“... and that was the death of him.”

“Yes, but the theater of the Baroque period was more than an art form. It was the most commonly employed symbol of the time.”

“A symbol of what?”

“Of life, Sophie. I don’t know how many times during the seventeenth century it was said that ‘Life is a theater.’ It was very often, anyway. The Baroque period gave birth to modern theater—with all its forms of scenery and theatrical machinery. In the theater one built up an illusion on stage—to expose ultimately that the stage play was just an illusion. The theater thus became a reflection of human life in general. The theater could show that ‘pride comes before a fall,’ and present a merciless portrait of human frailty.”

“Did Shakespeare live in the Baroque period?”

“He wrote his greatest plays around the year 1600, so he stands with one foot in the Renaissance and the other in the Baroque. Shakespeare’s work is full of passages about life as a theater. Would you like to hear some of them?”

“Yes.”

“In As You Like It, he says:

All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts.

“And in Macbeth, he says:

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more; it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.”

“How very pessimistic.”

“He was preoccupied with the brevity of life. You must have heard Shakespeare’s most famous line?”

“To be or not to be—that is the question.”

“Yes, spoken by Hamlet. One day we are walking around on the earth—and the next day we are dead and gone.”

“Thanks, I got the message.”

“When they were not comparing life to a stage, the Baroque poets were comparing life to a dream. Shakespeare says, for example: We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep...”

“That was very poetic.”

“The Spanish dramatist Calderon de la Barca, who was bom in the year 1600, wrote a play called Life Is a Dream, in which he says: ‘What is life? A madness. What is life? An illusion, a shadow, a story, and the greatest good is little enough, for all life is a dream ...’ “

“He may be right. We read a play at school. It was called Jeppe on the Mount.”

“By Ludvig Holberg, yes. He was a gigantic figure here in Scandinavia, marking the transition from the Baroque period to the Age of Enlightenment.”

“Jeppe falls asleep in a ditch ... and wakes up in the Baron’s bed. So he thinks he only dreamed that he was a poor farmhand. Then when he falls asleep again they carry him back to the ditch, and he wakes up again. This time he thinks he only dreamed he was lying in the Baron’s bed.”

“Holberg borrowed this theme from Calderon, and Calderon had borrowed it from the old Arabian tales, A Thousand and One Nights. Comparing life to a dream, though, is a theme we find even farther back in history, not least in India and China. The old Chinese sage Chuang-tzu, for example, said: Once I dreamed I was a butterfly, and now I no longer know whether I am Chuang-tzu, who dreamed I was a butterfly, or whether I am a butterfly dreaming that I am Chuang-tzu.”

“Well, it was impossible to prove either way.”

“We had in Norway a genuine Baroque poet called Fetter Dass, who lived from 1647 to 1707. On the one hand he was concerned with describing life as it is here and now, and on the other hand he emphasized that only God is eternal and constant.”

“God is God if every land was waste, God is God if every man were dead.”

“But in the same hymn he writes about rural life in Northern Norway—and about lumpfish, cod, and coal-fish. This is a typical Baroque feature, describing in the same text the earthly and the here and now—and the celestial and the hereafter. It is all very reminiscent of Plato’s distinction between the concrete world of the senses and the immutable world of ideas.”

“What about their philosophy?”

“That too was characterized by powerful struggles between diametrically opposed modes of thought. As I have already mentioned, some philosophers believed that what exists is at bottom spiritual in nature. This standpoint is called idealism. The opposite viewpoint is called materialism. By this is meant a philosophy which holds that all real things derive from concrete material substances. Materialism also had many advocates in the seventeenth century. Perhaps the most influential was the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes. He believed that all phenomena, including man and animals, consist exclusively of particles of matter. Even human consciousness—or the soul—derives from the movement of tiny particles in the brain.”

“So he agreed with what Democritus said two thousand years before?”

“Both idealism and materialism are themes you will find all through the history of philosophy. But seldom have both views been so clearly present at the same time as in the Baroque. Materialism was constantly nourished by the new sciences. Newton showed that the same laws of motion applied to the whole universe, and that all changes in the natural world—both on earth and in space—were explained by the principles of universal gravitation and the motion of bodies.

“Everything was thus governed by the same unbreakable laws—or by the same mechanisms. It is therefore possible in principle to calculate every natural change with mathematical precision. And thus Newton completed what we call the mechanistic world view.”

“Did he imagine the world as one big machine?”

“He did indeed. The word ‘mechanic’ comes from the Greek word ‘mechane,’ which means machine. It is remarkable that neither Hobbes nor Newton saw any contradiction between the mechanistic world picture and belief in God. But this was not the case for all eighteenth- and nineteenth-century materialists. The French physician and philosopher La Mettrie wrote a book in the eighteenth century called L ‘homme machine, which means ‘Man—the machine.’ Just as the leg has muscles to walk with, so has the brain ‘muscles’ to think with. Later on, the French mathematician Laplace expressed an extreme mechanistic view with this idea: If an intelligence at a given time had known the position of all particles of matter, ‘nothing would be unknown, and both future and past would lie open before their eyes.’ The idea here was that everything that happens is predetermined. ‘It’s written in the stars’ that something will happen. This view is called determinism.”

“So there was no such thing as free will.”

“No, everything was a product of mechanical processes—also our thoughts and dreams. German materialists in the nineteenth century claimed that the relationship of thought to the brain was like the relationship of urine to the kidneys and gall to the liver.”

“But urine and gall are material. Thoughts aren’t.”

“You’ve got hold of something central there. I can tell you a story about the same thing. A Russian astronaut and a Russian brain surgeon were once discussing religion. The brain surgeon was a Christian but the astronaut was not. The astronaut said, ‘I’ve been out in space many times but I’ve never seen God or angels.’ And the brain surgeon said, ‘And I’ve operated on many clever brains but I’ve never seen a single thought.’ “ “But that doesn’t prove that thoughts don’t exist.”

“No, but it does underline the fact that thoughts are not things that can be operated on or broken down into ever smaller parts. It is not easy, for example, to surgically remove a delusion. It grows too deep, as it were, for surgery. An important seventeenth-century philosopher named Leibniz pointed out that the difference between the material and the spiritual is precisely that the material can be broken up into smaller and smaller bits, but the soul cannot even be divided into two.”

“No, what kind of scalpel would you use for that?” Alberto simply shook his head. After a while he pointed down at the table between them and said:

“The two greatest philosophers in the seventeenth century were Descartes and Spinoza. They too struggled with questions like the relationship between ‘soul’ and ‘body,’ and we are now going to study them more closely.”

“Go ahead. But I’m supposed to be home by seven.”

Descartes

... he wanted to clear all the rubble off the site…

Alberto stood up, took off the red cloak, and laid it over a chair. Then he settled himself once again in the corner of the sofa.

“Rene Descartes was born in 1596 and lived in a number of different European countries at various periods of his life. Even as a young man he had a strong desire to achieve insight into the nature of man and the universe. But after studying philosophy he became increasingly convinced of his own ignorance.”

“Like Socrates?”

“More or less like him, yes. Like Socrates, he was convinced that certain knowledge is only attainable through reason. We can never trust what the old books tell us. We cannot even trust what our senses tell us.”

“Plato thought that too. He believed that only reason can give us certain knowledge.”

“Exactly. There is a direct line of descent from Socrates and Plato via St. Augustine to Descartes. They were all typical rationalists, convinced that reason was the only path to knowledge. After comprehensive studies, Descartes came to the conclusion that the body of knowledge handed down from the Middle Ages was not necessarily reliable. You can compare him to Socrates, who did not trust the general views he encountered in the central square of Athens. So what does one do, Sophie? Can you tell me that?”

“You begin to work out your own philosophy.”

“Right! Descartes decided to travel around Europe, the way Socrates spent his life talking to people in Athens. He relates that from then on he meant to confine himself to seeking the wisdom that was to be found, either within himself or in the ‘great book of the world.’ So he joined the army and went to war, which enabled him to spend periods of time in different parts of Central Europe. Later he lived for some years in Paris, but in 1629 he went to Holland, where he remained for nearly twenty years working on his mathematical and philosophic writings.

“In 1649 he was invited to Sweden by Queen Christina. But his sojourn in what he called ‘the land of bears, ice, and rocks’ brought on an attack of pneumonia and he died in the winter of 1650.”

“So he was only 54 when he died.”

“Yes, but he was to have enormous influence on philosophy, even after his death. One can say without exaggeration that Descartes was the father of modern philosophy. Following the heady rediscovery of man and nature in the Renaissance, the need to assemble contemporary thought into one coherent philosophical system again presented itself. The first significant system-builder was Descartes, and he was followed by Spinoza and Leibniz, Locke and Berkeley, Hume and Kant.”

“What do you mean by a philosophical system?”

“I mean a philosophy that is constructed from the ground up and that is concerned with finding explanations for all the central questions of philosophy. Antiquity had its great system-constructors in Plato and Aristotle. The Middle Ages had St. Thomas Aquinas, who tried to build a bridge between Aristotle’s philosophy and Christian theology. Then came the Renaissance, with a welter of old and new beliefs about nature and science, God and man. Not until the seventeenth century did philosophers make any attempt to assemble the new ideas into a clarified philosophical system, and the first to attempt it was Descartes. His work was the forerunner of what was to be philosophy’s most important project in the coming generations. His main concern was with what we can know, or in other words, certain knowledge. The other great question that preoccupied him was the relationship between body and mind. Both these questions were the substance of philosophical argument for the next hundred and fifty years.”

“He must have been ahead of his time.”

“Ah, but the question belonged to the age. When it came to acquiring certain knowledge, many of his contemporaries voiced a total philosophic skepticism. They thought that man should accept that he knew nothing. But Descartes would not. Had he done so he would not have been a real philosopher. We can again draw a parallel with Socrates, who did not accept the skepticism of the Sophists. And it was in Descartes’s lifetime that the new natural sciences were developing a method by which to provide certain and exact descriptions of natural processes.

“Descartes was obliged to ask himself if there was a similar certain and exact method of philosophic reflection.”

“That I can understand.”

“But that was only part of it. The new physics had also raised the question of the nature of matter, and thus what determines the physical processes of nature. More and more people argued in favor of a mechanistic view of nature. But the more mechanistic the physical world was seen to be, the more pressing became the question of the relationship between body and soul. Until the seventeenth century, the soul had commonly been considered as a sort of ‘breath of life’ that pervaded all living creatures. The original meaning of the words ‘soul’ and ‘spirit’ is, in fact, ‘breath’ and ‘breathing.’ This is the case for almost all European languages. To Aristotle, the soul was something that was present everywhere in the organism as its ‘life principle’—and therefore could not be conceived as separate from the body. So he was able to speak of a plant soul or an animal soul. Philosophers did not introduce any radical division of soul and body until the seventeenth century. The reason was that the motions of all material objects—including the body, animal or human—were explained as involving mechanical processes. But man’s soul could surely not be part of this body machinery, could it? What of the soul, then? An explanation was required not least of how something ‘spiritual’ could start a mechanical process.”

“It’s a strange thought, actually.”

“What is?”

“I decide to lift my arm—and then, well, the arm lifts itself. Or I decide to run for a bus, and the next second my legs are moving. Or I’m thinking about something sad, and suddenly I’m crying. So there must be some mysterious connection between body and consciousness.”

“That was exactly the problem that set Descartes’s thoughts going. Like Plato, he was convinced that there was a sharp division between ‘spirit’ and ‘matter.’ But as to how the mind influences the body—or the soul the body—Plato could not provide an answer.”

“Neither have I, so I am looking forward to hearing what Descartes’s theory was.”

“Let us follow his own line of reasoning.”

Albert pointed to the book that lay on the table between them.

“In his Discourse on Method, Descartes raises the question of the method the philosopher must use to solve a philosophical problem. Science already had its new method...”

“So you said.”

“Descartes maintains that we cannot accept anything as being true unless we can clearly and distinctly perceive it. To achieve this can require the breaking down of a compound problem into as many single factors as possible. Then we can take our point of departure in the simplest idea of all. You could say that every single thought must be weighed and measured, rather in the way Galileo wanted everything to be measured and everything immeasurable to be made measurable. Descartes believed that philosophy should go from the simple to the complex. Only then would it be possible to construct a new insight. And finally it would be necessary to ensure by constant enumeration and control that nothing was left out. Then, a philosophical conclusion would be within reach.”

“It sounds almost like a math test.”

“Yes. Descartes was a mathematician; he is considered the father of analytical geometry, and he made important contributions to the science of algebra. Descartes wanted to use the ‘mathematical method’ even for philosophizing. He set out to prove philosophical truths in the way one proves a mathematical theorem. In other words, he wanted to use exactly the same instrument that we use when we work with figures, namely, reason, since only reason can give us certainty. It is far from certain that we can rely on our senses. We have already noted Descartes’s affinity with Plato, who also observed that mathematics and numerical ratio give us more certainty than the evidence of our senses.”

“But can one solve philosophical problems that way?”

“We had better go back to Descartes’s own reasoning. His aim is to reach certainty about the nature of life, and he starts by maintaining that at first one should doubt everything. He didn’t want to build on sand, you see.”

“No, because if the foundations give way, the whole house collapses.”

“As you so neatly put it, my child. Now, Descartes did not think it reasonable to doubt everything, but he thought it was possible in principle to doubt everything. For one thing, it is by no means certain that we advance our philosophical quest by reading Plato or Aristotle. It may increase our knowledge of history but not of the world. It was important for Descartes to rid himself of all handed down, or received, learning before beginning his own philosophical construction.”

“He wanted to clear all the rubble off the site before starting to build his new house ...”

“Thank you. He wanted to use only fresh new materials in order to be sure that his new thought construction would hold. But Descartes’s doubts went even deeper. We cannot even trust what our senses tell us, he said. Maybe they are deceiving us.”

“How come?”

“When we dream, we feel we are experiencing reality. What separates our waking feelings from our dream feelings?

“ ‘When I consider this carefully, I find not a single property which with certainty separates the waking state from the dream,’ writes Descartes. And he goes on: ‘How can you be certain that your whole life is not a dream?’ “

“Jeppe thought he had only been dreaming when he had slept in the Baron’s bed.”

“And when he was lying in the Baron’s bed, he thought his life as a poor peasant was only a dream. So in the same way, Descartes ends up doubting absolutely everything. Many philosophers before him had reached the end of the road at that very point.”

“So they didn’t get very far.”

“But Descartes tried to work forward from this zero point. He doubted everything, and that was the only thing he was certain of. But now something struck him: one thing had to be true, and that was that he doubted. When he doubted, he had to be thinking, and because he was thinking, it had to be certain that he was a thinking being. Or, as he himself expressed it: Cogito, ergo sum.”

“Which means?”

“I think, therefore I am.”

“I’m not surprised he realized that.”

“Fair enough. But notice the intuitive certainty with which he suddenly perceives himself as a thinking being. Perhaps you now recall what Plato said, that what we grasp with our reason is more real than what we grasp with our senses. That’s the way it was for Descartes. He perceived not only that he was a thinking /, he realized at the same time that this thinking / was more real than the material world which we perceive with our senses. And he went on. He was by no means through with his philosophical quest.”

“What came next?”

“Descartes now asked himself if there was anything more he could perceive with the same intuitive certainty.

He came to the conclusion that in his mind he had a clear and distinct idea of a perfect entity. This was an idea he had always had, and it was thus self-evident to Descartes that such an idea could not possibly have come from himself. The idea of a perfect entity cannot have originated from one who was himself imperfect, he claimed. Therefore the idea of a perfect entity must have originated from that perfect entity itself, or in other words, from God. That God exists was therefore just as self-evident for Descartes as that a thinking being must exist.”

“Now he was jumping to a conclusion. He was more cautious to begin with.”

“You’re right. Many people have called that his weak spot. But you say ‘conclusion.’ Actually it was not a question of proof. Descartes only meant that we all possess the idea of a perfect entity, and that inherent in that idea is the fact that this perfect entity must exist. Because a perfect entity wouldn’t be perfect if it didn’t exist. Neither would we possess the idea of a perfect entity if there were no perfect entity. For we are imperfect, so the idea of perfection cannot come from us. According to Descartes, the idea of God is innate, it is stamped on us from birth ‘like the artisan’s mark stamped on his product.’ “

“Yes, but just because I possess the idea of a crocophant doesn’t mean that the crocophant exists.”

“Descartes would have said that it is not inherent in the concept of a crocophant that it exists. On the other hand, it is inherent in the concept of a perfect entity that such an entity exists. According to Descartes, this is just as certain as it is inherent in the idea of a circle that all points of the circle are equidistant from the center. You cannot have a circle that does not conform to this law. Nor can you have a perfect entity that lacks its most important property, namely, existence.”

“That’s an odd way of thinking.”

“It is a decidedly rationalistic way of thinking. Descartes believed like Socrates and Plato that there is a connection between reason and being. The more self-evident a thing is to one’s reason, the more certain it is that it exists.”

“So far he has gotten to the fact that he is a thinking person and that there exists a perfect entity.”

“Yes, and with this as his point of departure, he proceeds. In the question of all the ideas we have about outer reality—for example, the sun and the moon—there is the possibility that they are fantasies. But outer reality also has certain characteristics that we can perceive with our reason. These are the mathematical properties, or, in other words, the kinds of things that are measurable, such as length, breadth, and depth. Such ‘quantitative’ properties are just as clear and distinct to my reason as the fact that I am a thinking being. ‘Qualitative’ properties such as color, smell, and taste, on the other hand, are linked to our sense perception and as such do not describe outer reality.”

“So nature is not a dream after all.”

“No, and on that point Descartes once again draws upon our idea of the perfect entity. When our reason recognizes something clearly and distinctly—as is the case for the mathematical properties of outer reality—it must necessarily be so. Because a perfect God would not deceive us. Descartes claims ‘God’s guarantee’ that whatever we perceive with our reason also corresponds to reality.”

“Okay, so now he’s found out he’s a thinking being, God exists, and there is an outer reality.”

“Ah, but the outer reality is essentially different from the reality of thought. Descartes now maintains that there are two different forms of reality—or two ‘substances.’ One substance is thought, or the ‘mind,’ the other is extension, or matter. The mind is purely conscious, it takes up no room in space and can therefore not be subdivided into smaller parts. Matter, however, is purely extension, it takes up room in space and can therefore always be subdivided into smaller and smaller parts— but it has no consciousness. Descartes maintained that both substances originate from God, because only God himself exists independently of anything else. But although both thought and extension come from God, the two substances have no contact with each other. Thought is quite independent of matter, and conversely, the material processes are quite independent of thought.”

“So he divided God’s creation into two.”

“Precisely. We say that Descartes is a dualist, which means that he effects a sharp division between the reality of thought and extended reality. For example, only man has a mind. Animals belong completely to extended reality. Their living and moving are accomplished mechanically. Descartes considered an animal to be a kind of complicated automaton. As regards extended reality, he takes a thoroughly mechanistic view—exactly like the materialists.”

“I doubt very much that Hermes is a machine or an automaton. Descartes couldn’t have liked animals very much. And what about us? Are we automatons as well?”

“We are and we aren’t. Descartes came to the conclusion that man is a dual creature that both thinks and takes up room in space. Man has thus both a mind and an extended body. St. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas had already said something similar, namely, that man had a body like the animals and a soul like the angels. According to Descartes, the human body is a perfect machine. But man also has a mind which can operate quite independently of the body. The bodily processes do not have the same freedom, they obey their own laws. But what we think with our reason does not happen in the body—it happens in the mind, which is completely independent of extended reality. I should add, by the way, that Descartes did not reject the possibility that animals could think. But if they have that faculty, the same dualism between thought and extension must also apply to them.”

“We have talked about this before. If I decide to run after a bus, the whole ‘automaton’ goes into action. And if I don’t catch the bus, I start to cry.”

“Even Descartes could not deny that there is a constant interaction between mind and body. As long as the mind is in the body, he believed, it is linked to the brain through a special brain organ which he called the pineal gland, where a constant interaction takes place between ‘spirit’ and ‘matter.’ Therefore the mind can constantly be affected by feelings and passions that are related to bodily needs. But the mind can also detach itself from such ‘base’ impulses and operate independently of the body. The aim is to get reason to assume command. Because even if I have the worst pain in my stomach, the sum of the angles in a triangle will still be 180 degrees. Thus humans have the capacity to rise above bodily needs and behave rationally. In this sense the mind is superior to the body. Our legs can age and become weak, the back can become bowed and our teeth can fall out—but two and two will go on being four as long as there is reason left in us. Reason doesn’t become bowed and weak. It is the body that ages. For Descartes, the mind is essentially thought. Baser passions and feelings such as desire and hate are more closely linked to our bodily functions—and therefore to extended reality.”

“I can’t get over the fact that Descartes compared the human body to a machine or an automaton.”

“The comparison was based on the fact that people in his time were deeply fascinated by machines and the workings of clocks, which appeared to have the ability to function of their own accord. The word ‘automaton’ means precisely that—something that moves of its own accord. It was obviously only an illusion that they moved of their own accord. An astronomical clock, for instance, is both constructed and wound up by human hands. Descartes made a point of the fact that ingenious inventions of that kind were actually assembled very simply from a relatively small number of parts compared with the vast number of bones, muscles, nerves, veins, and arteries that the human and the animal body consists of. Why should God not be able to make an animal or a human body based on mechanical laws?”

“Nowadays there is a lot of talk about ‘artificial intelligence.’ “

“Yes, that is the automaton of our time. We have created machines that can sometimes deceive us into believing that they are intelligent. Machines like these would have terrified Descartes out of his wits. He might have begun to doubt whether human reason really was as free and independent as he had supposed. And there are philosophers who believe that man’s spiritual life is no more free than the bodily processes. The human soul is naturally infinitely more complex than any data program, but some people think that in principle we are just as unfree as these data programs. But look, Sophie—I’ll show you something.”

Alberto pointed to a large writing table at the other end of the room. On it stood a small computer. He went over to it. Sophie followed him.

Alberto switched the computer on and soon the screen showed C: at the top. He wrote “Laila,” explaining that this was an advanced conversation program.

A text soon appeared at the top of the screen:

“Hi, my name is Laila. Are you sitting comfortably?”

Sophie entered three letters:

“Yes,” she wrote although she had not yet sat down. Alberto brought up a chair for her.

“What is your name?” appeared on the screen.

“Sophie Amundsen,” wrote Sophie, and the computer answered:

“3 Clover Close. Nice to meet you, Sophie. Are you looking forward to your fifteenth birthday?”

Sophie was startled. Alberto laid a hand on her shoulder and said: “I have only given her your name, your address, and your date of birth. It’s like when you are going to be introduced to a new friend. It’s nice to know a little about them beforehand.”

“Not bad,” wrote Sophie.

“Oh dear, I hope you are not feeling bad, Sophie. You must try to talk in whole sentences.”

“Thank you, I’m perfectly well. Can I ask you something?”

“I am glad you are well. Go ahead and ask me something.”

“How old are you?” Sophie wrote.

“I was constructed in Atlanta on August 8, 1988, but I was translated into Norwegian at the Norwegian Polytechnic on March 28, 1990.”

“Gosh!”

“I said you must talk in whole sentences.”

“I only said gosh!”

“I do not understand slang. I have a vocabulary of over 100,000 words, but the nearest I can find to gosh is gospel.”

“That means the story of Jesus.”

“Are you a Christian, Sophie?”

“I don’t know.”

“As a rule not knowing is a step toward new knowledge.”

“Socrates would most likely have said the same. Or Descartes, for that matter.”

“Socrates was a Greek philosopher who lived from 470 to 399 B.C. If you wish to know more, press F7. Descartes was a French philosopher who lived from 1596 to 1650. If you wish to know more, press F7.”

“Thank you, that will be quite enough. Can I ask you something else?”

“I am glad that this was enough. Go ahead and ask!”

Alberto laughed quietly. Sophie wrote:

“Who is Hilde Moller Knag?”

“Hilde Moller Knag lives in Lillesand and is exactly the same age as Sophie Amundsen.”

“How do you know?”

“I don’t know how. I found her on the hard disc.”

Sophie felt a hand on her shoulder.

“I have fed the data program with the little information we have about Hilde,” said Alberto.

“What else do you know about Hilde?” wrote Sophie.

“Hilde’s father is a UN Observer in Lebanon. He has the rank of major and continually sends postcards to his daughter.”

“I want you to find him!”

“I can’t do that. He is not on any of my files and I am not coupled to any other data base.”

“I said find him!!!!!!!!”

“Are you angry, Sophie? So many exclamation marks are a sign of violent feelings.”

“I want to talk to Hilde’s father!”

“You have difficulty controlling yourself. If you wish to talk about your childhood, press F9.”

Alberto laid his hand on Sophie’s shoulder again.

“She’s right. This is not a crystal ball. Laila is only a data program.”

“Shut up!” wrote Sophie.

“As you wish, Sophie. Our acquaintance lasted only 13 minutes and 52 seconds. I shall remember everything we have said. I shall now end the program.”

The letter C: once again showed up on the screen.

“Now we can sit down again,” said Alberto.

But Sophie had already pressed some other keys.

“Knag,” she wrote.

Immediately the following message appeared on the screen:

“Here I am.”

Now it was Alberto who jumped.

“Who are you?” wrote Sophie.

“Major Albert Knag at your service. I came straight from Lebanon. What is your command?”

“This beats everything!” breathed Alberto. “The rat has sneaked onto the hard disc.”

He motioned for Sophie to move and sat down in front of the keyboard.

“How did you manage to get into my PC?” he wrote.

“A mere bagatelle, dear colleague. I am exactly where I choose to be.”

“You loathsome data virus!”

“Now, now! At the moment I am here as a birthday virus. May I send a special greeting?”

“No thanks, we’ve had enough of them.”

“But I’ll be quick: all in your honor, dear Hilde. Once again, a very happy fifteenth birthday. Please excuse the circumstances, but I wanted my birthday greetings to spring up around you everywhere you go. Love from Dad, who is longing to give you a great big hug.”

Before Alberto could write again, the sign C: had once again appeared on the screen.

Alberto wrote “dir knag*.*,” which called up the following information on the screen:

knag.lib 147,643 06-15-90 12:47

knag.lil 326,439 06-23-90 22:34

Alberto wrote “erase knag*.*” and switched off the computer.

“There—now I have erased him,” he said. “But it’s impossible to say where he’ll turn up next time.”

He went on sitting there, staring at the screen. Then he added:

“The worst of it all was the name. Albert Knag ...”

For the first time Sophie was struck by the similarity between the two names. Albert Knag and Alberto Knox. But Alberto was so incensed that she dared not say a word. They went over and sat by the coffee table again.

Spinoza

…God is not a puppeteer…

They sat silently for a long time. Then Sophie spoke, trying to get Alberto’s mind off what had happened.

“Descartes must have been an odd kind of person. Did he become famous?”

Alberto breathed deeply for a couple of seconds before answering: “He had a great deal of significance. Perhaps most of all for another great philosopher, Ba-ruch Spinoza, who lived from 1632 to 1677.”

“Are you going to tell me about him?”

“That was my intention. And we’re not going to be stopped by military provocations.”

“I’m all ears.”

“Spinoza belonged to the Jewish community of Amsterdam, but he was excommunicated for heresy. Few philosophers in more recent times have been so blasphemed and so persecuted for their ideas as this man. It happened because he criticized the established religion. He believed that Christianity and Judaism were only kept alive by rigid dogma and outer ritual. He was the first to apply what we call a historico-critical interpretation of the Bible.”

“Explanation, please.”

“He denied that the Bible was inspired by God down to the last letter. When we read the Bible, he said, we must continually bear in mind the period it was written in. A ‘critical’ reading, such as the one he proposed, revealed a number of inconsistencies in the texts. But beneath the surface of the Scriptures in the New Testament is Jesus, who could well be called God’s mouthpiece. The teachings of Jesus therefore represented a liberation from the orthodoxy of Judaism. Jesus preached a ‘religion of reason’ which valued love higher than all else. Spinoza interpreted this as meaning both love of God and love of humanity. Nevertheless, Christianity had also become set in its own rigid dogmas and outer rituals.”

“I don’t suppose these ideas were easy to swallow, either for the church or the synagogue.”

“When things got really tough, Spinoza was even deserted by his own family. They tried to disinherit him on the grounds of his heresy. Paradoxically enough, few have spoken out more powerfully in the cause of free speech and religious tolerance than Spinoza. The opposition he was met with on all sides led him to pursue a quiet and secluded life devoted entirely to philosophy. He earned a meager living by polishing lenses, some of which have come into my possession.”

“Very impressive!”

“There is almost something symbolic in the fact that he lived by polishing lenses. A philosopher must help people to see life in a new perspective. One of the pillars of Spinoza’s philosophy was indeed to see things from the perspective of eternity.”

“The perspective of eternity?”

“Yes, Sophie. Do you think you can imagine your own life in a cosmic context? You’ll have to try and imagine yourself and your life here and now ...”

“Hm ... that’s not so easy.”

“Remind yourself that you are only living a minuscule part of all nature’s life. You are part of an enormous whole.”

“I think I see what you mean ...”

“Can you manage to feel it as well? Can you perceive all of nature at one time—the whole universe, in fact— at a single glance?”

“I doubt it. Maybe I need some lenses.”

“I don’t mean only the infinity of space. I mean the eternity of time as well. Once upon a time, thirty thousand years ago there lived a little boy in the Rhine valley. He was a tiny part of nature, a tiny ripple on an endless sea. You too, Sophie, you too are living a tiny part of nature’s life. There is no difference between you and that boy.”

“Except that I’m alive now.”

“Yes, but that is precisely what I wanted you to try and imagine. Who will you be in thirty thousand years?”

“Was that the heresy?”

“Not entirely ... Spinoza didn’t only say that everything is nature. He identified nature with God. He said God is all, and all is in God.”

“So he was a pantheist.”

“That’s true. To Spinoza, God did not create the world in order to stand outside it. No, God is the world. Sometimes Spinoza expresses it differently. He maintains that the world is in God. In this, he is quoting St. Paul’s speech to the Athenians on the Areopagos hill: ‘In him we live and move and have our being.’ But let us pursue Spinoza’s own reasoning. His most important book was his Ethics Geometrically Demonstrated.”

“Ethics—geometrically demonstrated?”

“It may sound a bit strange to us. In philosophy, ethics means the study of moral conduct for living a good life. This is also what we mean when we speak of the ethics of Socrates or Aristotle, for example. It is only in our own time that ethics has more or less become reduced to a set of rules for living without treading on other people’s toes.”

“Because thinking of yourself is supposed to be egoism?”

“Something like that, yes. When Spinoza uses the word ethics, he means both the art of living and moral conduct.”

“But even so ... the art of living demonstrated geometrically?”

“The geometrical method refers to the terminology he used for his formulations. You may recall how Descartes wished to use mathematical method for philosophical reflection. By this he meant a form of philosophic reflection that was constructed from strictly logical conclusions. Spinoza was part of the same rationalistic tradition. He wanted his ethics to show that human life is subject to the universal laws of nature. We must therefore free ourselves from our feelings and our passions. Only then will we find contentment and be happy, he believed.”

“Surely we are not ruled exclusively by the laws of nature?”

“Well, Spinoza is not an easy philosopher to grasp. Let’s take him bit by bit. You remember that Descartes believed that reality consisted of two completely separate substances, namely thought and extension.”

“How could I have forgotten it?”

“The word ‘substance’ can be interpreted as ‘that which something consists of,’ or that which something basically is or can be reduced to. Descartes operated then with two of these substances. Everything was either thought or extension.

“However, Spinoza rejected this split. He believed that there was only one substance. Everything that exists can be reduced to one single reality which he simply called Substance. At times he calls it God or nature. Thus Spinoza does not have the dualistic view of reality that Descartes had. We say he is a monist. That is, he reduces nature and the condition of all things to one single substance.”

“They could hardly have disagreed more.”

“Ah, but the difference between Descartes and Spinoza is not as deep-seated as many have often claimed. Descartes also pointed out that only God exists independently. It’s only when Spinoza identifies God with nature—or God and creation—that he distances himself a good way from both Descartes and from the Jewish and Christian doctrines.”

“So then nature is God, and that’s that.”

“But when Spinoza uses the word ‘nature,’ he doesn’t only mean extended nature. By Substance, God, or nature, he means everything that exists, including all things spiritual.”

“You mean both thought and extension.”

“You said it! According to Spinoza, we humans recognize two of God’s qualities or manifestations. Spinoza called these qualities God’s attributes, and these two attributes are identical with Descartes’s ‘thought’ and ‘extension.’ God—or nature—manifests itself either as thought or as extension. It may well be that God has infinitely more attributes than ‘thought’ and ‘extension,’ but these are the only two that are known to man.”

“Fair enough, but what a complicated way of saying it.”

“Yes, one almost needs a hammer and chisel to get through Spinoza’s language. The reward is that in the end you dig out a thought as crystal clear as a diamond.”

“I can hardly wait!”

“Everything in nature, then, is either thought or extension. The various phenomena we come across in everyday life, such as a flower or a poem by Wordsworth, are different modes of the attribute of thought or extension. A ‘mode’ is the particular manner which Substance, God, or nature assumes. A flower is a mode of the attribute of extension, and a poem about the same flower is a mode of the attribute of thought. But both are basically the expression of Substance, God, or nature.”

“You could have fooled me!”

“But it’s not as complicated as he makes it sound. Beneath his stringent formulation lies a wonderful realization that is actually so simple that everyday language cannot accommodate it.”

“I think I prefer everyday language, if it’s all the same to you.”

“Right. Then I’d better begin with you yourself. When you get a pain in your stomach, what is it that has a pain?”

“Like you just said. It’s me.”

“Fair enough. And when you later recollect that you once had a pain in your stomach, what is it that thinks?”

“That’s me, too.”

“So you are a single person that has a stomachache one minute and is in a thoughtful mood the next. Spinoza maintained that all material things and things that happen around us are an expression of God or nature. So it follows that all thoughts that we think are also God’s or nature’s thoughts. For everything is One. There is only one God, one nature, or one Substance.”

“But listen, when I think something, I’m the one who’s doing the thinking. When I move, I’m doing the moving. Why do you have to mix God into it?”

“I like your involvement. But who are you? You are Sophie Amundsen, but you are also the expression of something infinitely bigger. You can, if you wish, say that you are thinking or that you are moving, but could you not also say that it is nature that is thinking your thoughts, or that it is nature that is moving through you? It’s really just a question of which lenses you choose to look through.”

“Are you saying I cannot decide for myself?”

“Yes and no. You may have the right to move your thumb any way you choose. But your thumb can only move according to its nature. It cannot jump off your hand and dance about the room. In the same way you also have your place in the structure of existence, my dear. You are Sophie, but you are also a finger of God’s body.”

“So God decides everything I do?”

“Or nature, or the laws of nature. Spinoza believed that God—or the laws of nature—is the inner cause of everything that happens. He is not an outer cause, since God speaks through the laws of nature and only through them.”

“I’m not sure I can see the difference.”

“God is not a puppeteer who pulls all the strings, controlling everything that happens. A real puppet master controls the puppets from outside and is therefore the ‘outer cause’ of the puppet’s movements. But that is not the way God controls the world. God controls the world through natural laws. So God—or nature—is the ‘inner cause’ of everything that happens. This means that everything in the material world happens through necessity. Spinoza had a determinist view of the material, or natural, world.”

“I think you said something like that before.”

“You’re probably thinking of the Stoics. They also claimed that everything happens out of necessity. That was why it was important to meet every situation with ‘stoicism.’ Man should not get carried away by his feelings. Briefly, that was also Spinoza’s ethics.”

“I see what you mean, but I still don’t like the idea that I don’t decide for myself.”

“Okay, let’s go back in time to the Stone Age boy who lived thirty thousand years ago. When he grew up, he cast spears after wild animals, loved a woman who became the mother of his children, and quite certainly worshipped the tribal gods. Do you really think he decided all that for himself?”

“I don’t know.”

“Or think of a lion in Africa. Do you think it makes up its mind to be a beast of prey? Is that why it attacks a limping antelope? Could it instead have made up its mind to be a vegetarian?”

“No, a lion obeys its nature.”

“You mean, the laws of nature. So do you, Sophie, because you are also part of nature. You could of course protest, with the support of Descartes, that a lion is an animal and not a free human being with free mental faculties. But think of a newborn baby that screams and yells. If it doesn’t get milk it sucks its thumb. Does that baby have a free will?”

“I guess not.”

“When does the child get its free will, then? At the age of two, she runs around and points at everything in sight. At the age of three she nags her mother, and at the age of four she suddenly gets afraid of the dark. Where’s the freedom, Sophie?”

“I don’t know.”

“When she is fifteen, she sits in front of a mirror experimenting with makeup. Is this the moment when she makes her own personal decisions and does what she likes?”

“I see what you’re getting at.”

“She is Sophie Amundsen, certainly. But she also lives according to the laws of nature. The point is that she doesn’t realize it because there are so many complex reasons for everything she does.”

“I don’t think I want to hear any more.”

“But you must just answer a last question. Two equally old trees are growing in a large garden. One of the trees grows in a sunny spot and has plenty of good soil and water. The other tree grows in poor soil in a dark spot. Which of the trees do you think is bigger? And which of them bears more fruit?”

“Obviously the tree with the best conditions for growing.”

“According to Spinoza, this tree is free. It has its full freedom to develop its inherent abilities. But if it is an apple tree it will not have the ability to bear pears or plums. The same applies to us humans. We can be hindered in our development and our personal growth by political conditions, for instance. Outer circumstances can constrain us. Only when we are free to develop our innate abilities can we live as free beings. But we are just as much determined by inner potential and outer opportunities as the Stone Age boy on the Rhine, the lion in Africa, or the apple tree in the garden.”

“Okay, I give in, almost.”

“Spinoza emphasizes that there is only one being which is totally and utterly ‘its own cause’ and can act with complete freedom. Only God or nature is the expression of such a free and ‘nonaccidental’ process. Man can strive for freedom in order to live without outer constraint, but he will never achieve ‘free will.’ We do not control everything that happens in our body—which is a mode of the attribute of extension. Neither do we ‘choose’ our thinking. Man therefore does not have a ‘free soul’; it is more or less imprisoned in a mechanical body.”

“That is rather hard to understand.”

“Spinoza said that it was our passions—such as ambition and lust—which prevent us from achieving true happiness and harmony, but that if we recognize that everything happens from necessity, we can achieve an intuitive understanding of nature as a whole. We can come to realize with crystal clarity that everything is related, even that everything is One. The goal is to comprehend everything that exists in an all-embracing perception. Only then will we achieve true happiness and contentment. This was what Spinoza called seeing everything ‘sub specie aeternitatis.’ “

“Which means what?”

“To see everything from the perspective of eternity. Wasn’t that where we started?”

“It’ll have to be where we end, too. I must get going.”

Alberto got up and fetched a large fruit dish from the book shelves. He set it on the coffee table.

“Won’t you at least have a piece of fruit before you go?”

Sophie helped herself to a banana. Alberto took a green apple.

She broke off the top of the banana and began to peel it.

“There’s something written here,” she said suddenly.

“Where?”

“Here—inside the banana peel. It looks as if it was written with an ink brush.”

Sophie leaned over and showed Alberto the banana. He read aloud:

Here I am again, Hilde. I’m everywhere. Happy birthday!

“Very funny,” said Sophie.

“He gets more crafty all the time.”

“But it’s impossible ... isn’t it? Do you know if they grow bananas in Lebanon?”

Alberto shook his head.

“I’m certainly not going to eat that.”

“Leave it then. Someone who writes birthday greetings to his daughter on the inside of an unpeeled banana must be mentally disturbed. But he must also be quite ingenious.”

“Yes, both.”

“So shall we establish here and now that Hilde has an ingenious father? In other words, he’s not so stupid.”

“That’s what I’ve been telling you. And it could just as well be him that made you call me Hilde last time I came here. Maybe he’s the one putting all the words in our mouths.”

“Nothing can be ruled out. But we should doubt everything.”

“For all we know, our entire life could be a dream.”

“But let’s not jump to conclusions. There could be a simpler explanation.”

“Well whatever, I have to hurry home. My mom is waiting for me.”

Alberto saw her to the door. As she left, he said:

“We’ll meet again, dear Hilde.”

Then the door closed behind her.