Sophie's World: A Novel About the History of Philosophy (33 page)

"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 con-straint, 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.

LOCKE

... as hare and empty as a blackboard before the teacher arrives... Sophie arrived home at eight-thirty. That was one and a half hours after the agreement--which was not really an agreement. She had simply skipped dinner and left a message for her mother that she would be back not later than seven.

"This has got to stop, Sophie. I had to call information and ask if they had any record of anyone named Alberto in the Old Town. They laughed at me."

"I couldn't get away. I think we're just about to make a breakthrough in a huge mystery."

"Nonsense!"

"It's true!"

"Did you invite him to your party?"

"Oh no, I forgot."

"Well, now I insist on meeting him. Tomorrow at the latest. It's not natural for a young girl to be meeting an older man like this."

"You've got no reason to be scared of Alberto. It may be worse with Hilde's father."

"Who's Hilde?"

"The daughter of the man in Lebanon. He's really bad. He may be controlling the whole world."

"If you don't immediately introduce me to your Alberto, I won't allow you to see him again. I won't feel easy about him until I at least know what he looks like."

Sophie had a brilliant idea and dashed up to her room.

"What's the matter with you now?" her mother called after her.

In a flash Sophie was back again. "In a minute you'll see what he looks like. And then I hope you'll let me be."

She waved the video cassette and went over to the VCR.

"Did he give you a video?"

"From Athens..."

Pictures of the Acropolis soon appeared on the screen. Her mother sat dumbfounded as Alberto came forward and began to speak directly to Sophie.

Sophie now noticed something she had forgotten about. The Acropolis was crowded with tourists milling about in their respective groups. A small placard was being held up from the middle of one group. On it was written HILDE ... Alberto continued his wandering on the Acropolis. After a while he went down through the entrance and climbed to the Areopagos hill where Paul had addressed the Athenians. Then he went on to talk to Sophie from the square.

Her mother sat commenting on the video in short utterances:

"Incredible... is that Alberto? He mentioned the rabbit again... But, yes, he's really talking to you, Sophie. I didn't know Paul went to Athens ..."

The video was coming to the part where ancient Athens suddenly rises from the ruins. At the last minute Sophie managed to stop the tape. Now that she had shown her mother Alberto, there was no need to introduce her to Plato as well.

There was silence in the room.

"What do you think of him? He's quite good-looking, isn't he?" teased Sophie.

"What a strange man he must be, having himself filmed in Athens just so he could send it to a girl he hardly knows. When was he in Athens?"

"I haven't a clue."

"But there's something else ..." "What?"

"He looks very much like the major who lived in that little hut in the woods."

"Well maybe it is him, Mom."

"But nobody has seen him for over fifteen years."

"He probably moved around a lot... to Athens, maybe."

Her mother shook her head. "When I saw him sometime in the seventies, he wasn't a day younger than this Alberto I just saw. He had a foreign-sounding name..."

"Knox?"

"Could be, Sophie. Could be his name was Knox."

"Or was it Knag?"

"I can't for the life of me remember ... Which Knox or Knag are you talking about?"

"One is Alberto, the other is Hilde's father."

"It's all making me dizzy."

"Is there any food in the house?"

"You can warm up the meatballs."

Exactly two weeks went by without Sophie hearing a word from Alberto. She got another birthday card for Hilde, but although the actual day was approaching, she did not receive a single birthday card herself.

One afternoon she went to the Old Town and knocked on Alberto's door. He was out, but there was a short note attached to his door. It said:

Happy birthday, Hilde! Now the great turning point is at hand. The moment of truth, little one. Every time I think about it, I can't stop laughing. It has naturally something to do with Berkeley, so hold on to your hat.

Sophie tore the note off the door and stuffed it into Alberto's mailbox as she went out.

Damn! Surely he'd not gone back to Athens? How could he leave her with so many questions unanswered?

When she got home from school on June 14, Hermes was romping about in the garden. Sophie ran toward him and he came prancing happily toward her. She put her arms around him as if he were the one who could solve all the riddles.

Again she left a note for her mother, but this time she put Alberto's address on it.

As they made their way across town Sophie thought about tomorrow. Not about her own birthday so much-- that was not going to be celebrated until Midsummer Eve anyway. But tomorrow was Hilde's birthday too. Sophie was convinced something quite extraordinary would happen. At least there would be an end to all those birthday cards from Lebanon.

When they had crossed Main Square and were making for the Old Town, they passed by a park with a playground. Hermes stopped by a bench as if he wanted Sophie to sit down.

She did, and while she patted the dog's head she looked into his eyes. Suddenly the dog started to shudder violently. He's going to bark now, thought Sophie.