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Kant
...the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me...
It was close to midnight before Major Albert Knag called home to wish Hilde a happy birthday. Hilde's mother answered the telephone.
"It's for you, Hilde."
"Hello?"
"It's Dad."
"Are you crazy? It's nearly midnight!"
"I just wanted to say Happy Birthday ..."
"You've been doing that all day."
"... but I didn't want to call before the day was over."
"Why?"
"Didn't you get my present?"
"Yes, I did. Thank you very much."
"I can't wait to hear what you think of it."
"It's terrific. I have hardly eaten all day, it's so exciting."
"I have to know how far you've gotten."
"They just went inside the major's cabin because you started teasing them with a sea serpent."
"The Enlightenment."
"And Olympe de Gouges."
"So I didn't get it completely wrong."
"Wrong in what way?"
"I think there's one more birthday greeting to come. But that one is set to music."
"I'd better read a little more before I go to sleep."
"You haven't given up, then?"
"I've learned more in this one day than ever before. I can hardly believe that it's less than twenty-four hours since Sophie got home from school and found the first envelope."
"It's strange how little time it takes to read."
"But I can't help feeling sorry for her."
"For Mom?"
"No, for Sophie, of course."
"Why?"
"The poor girl is totally confused."
"But she's only ..."
"You were going to say she's only made up."
"Yes, something like that."
"I think Sophie and Alberto really exist."
"We'll talk more about it when I get home."
"Okay."
"Have a nice day."
"What?"
"I mean good night."
"Good night."
When Hilde went to bed half an hour later it was still so light that she could see the garden and the little bay. It never got really dark at this time of the year.
She played with the idea that she was inside a picture hanging on the wall of the little cabin in the woods. She wondered if one could look out of the picture into what surrounded it.
Before she fell asleep, she read a few more pages in the big ring binder.
Sophie put the letter from Hilde's father back on the mantel.
"What he says about the UN is not unimportant," said Alberto, "but I don't like him interfering in my presentation."
"I don't think you should worry too much about that." "Nevertheless, from now on I intend to ignore all extraordinary phenomena such as sea serpents and the like. Let's sit here by the window while I tell you about Kant."
Sophie noticed a pair of glasses lying on a small table between two armchairs. She also noticed that the lenses were red.
Maybe they were strong sunglasses . . .
"It's almost two o'clock," she said. "I have to be home before five. Mom has probably made plans for my birthday."
"That gives us three hours."
"Let's start."
"Immanuel Kant was born in 1724 in the East Prussian town of Konigsberg, the son of a master saddler. He lived there practically all his life until he died at the age of eighty. His family was deeply pious, and his own religious conviction formed a significant background to his philosophy. Like Berkeley, he felt it was essential to preserve the foundations of Christian belief."
"I've heard enough about Berkeley, thanks."
"Kant was the first of the philosophers we have heard about so far to have taught philosophy at a university. He was a professor of philosophy."
"Professor?"
"There are two kinds of philosopher. One is a person who seeks his own answers to philosophical questions. The other is someone who is an expert on the history of philosophy but does not necessarily construct his own philosophy."
"And Kant was that kind?"
"Kant was both. If he had simply been a brilliant professor and an expert on the ideas of other philosophers, he would never have carved a place for himself in the history of philosophy. But it is important to note that Kant had a solid grounding in the philosophic tradition of the past. He was familiar both with the rationalism of Descartes and Spinoza and the empiricism of Locke, Berkeley, and Hume."
"I asked you not to mention Berkeley again."
"Remember that the rationalists believed that the basis for all human knowledge lay in the mind. And that the empiricists believed all knowledge of the world proceeded from the senses. Moreover, Hume had pointed out that there are clear limits regarding which conclusions we could reach through our sense perceptions."
"And who did Kant agree with?"
"He thought both views were partly right, but he thought both were partly wrong, too. The question everybody was concerned with was what we can know about the world. This philosophical project had been preoccupying all philosophers since Descartes.
"Two main possibilities were drawn up: either the world is exactly as we perceive it, or it is the way it appears to our reason."
"And what did Kant think?"
"Kant thought that both 'sensing' and 'reason' come into play in our conception of the world. But he thought the rationalists went too far in their claims as to how much reason can contribute, and he also thought the empiricists placed too much emphasis on sensory experience."
"If you don't give me an example soon, it will all be just a bunch of words."
"In his point of departure Kant agrees with Hume and the empiricists that all our knowledge of the world comes from our sensations. But--and here Kant stretches his hand out to the rationalists--in our reason there are also decisive factors that determine how we perceive the world around us. In other words, there are certain conditions in the human mind that are contributive to our conception of the world."
"You call that an example?"
"Let us rather do a little experiment. Could you bring those glasses from the table over there? Thank you. Now, put them on."
Sophie put the glasses on. Everything around her became red. The pale colors became pink and the dark colors became crimson.
"What do you see?"
"I see exactly the same as before, except that it's all red."
"That's because the glasses limit the way you perceive reality. Everything you see is part of the world around you, but how you see it is determined by the glasses you are wearing. So you cannot say the world is red even though you conceive it as being so."
"No, naturally."
"If you now took a walk in the woods, or home to Captain's Bend, you would see everything the way you normally do. But whatever you saw, it would all be red."
"As long as I didn't take the glasses off, yes."
"And that, Sophie, is precisely what Kant meant when he said that there are certain conditions governing the mind's operation which influence the way we experience the world."
"What kind of conditions?"
"Whatever we see will first and foremost be perceived as phenomena in time and space. Kant called 'time' and 'space' our two 'forms of intuition.' And he emphasized that these two 'forms' in our own mind precede every experience. In other words, we can know before we experience things that we will perceive them as phenomena in time and space. For we are not able to take off the 'glasses' of reason."
"So he thought that perceiving things in time and space was innate?"
"Yes, in a way. What we see may depend on whether we are raised in India or Greenland, but wherever we are, we experience the world as a series of processes in time and space. This is something we can say beforehand."
"But aren't time and space things that exist beyond ourselves?"
"No. Kant's idea was that time and space belong to the human condition. Time and space are first and foremost modes of perception and not attributes or the physical world."
"That was a whole new way of looking at things."
"For the mind of man is not just 'passive wax' which simply receives sensations from outside. The mind leaves its imprint on the way we apprehend the world. You could compare it with what happens when you pour water into a glass pitcher. The water adapts itself to the pitcher's form. In the same way our perceptions adapt themselves to our 'forms of intuition.' "
"I think I understand what you mean."
"Kant claimed that it is not only mind which conforms to things. Things also conform to the mind. Kant called this the Copernican Revolution in the problem of human knowledge.
"By that he meant that it was just as new and just as radically different from former thinking as when Copernicus claimed that the earth revolved around the sun and not vice versa."
"I see now how he could think both the rationalists and the empiricists were right up to a point. The rationalists had almost forgotten the importance of experience, and the empiricists had shut their eyes to the way our own mind influences the way we see the world."
"And even the law of causality--which Hume believed man could not experience--belongs to the mind, according to Kant."
"Explain that, please."
"You remember how Hume claimed that it was only force of habit that made us see a causal link behind all natural processes. According to Hume, we cannot per-ceive the black billiard ball as being the cause of the white ball's movement. Therefore, we cannot prove that the black billiard ball will always set the white one in motion."
"Yes, I remember."
"But that very thing which Hume says we cannot prove is what Kant makes into an attribute of human reason. The law of causality is eternal and absolute simply because human reason perceives everything that happens as a matter of cause and effect."
"Again, I would have thought that the law of causality lay in the physical world itself, not in our minds."
"Kant's philosophy states that it is inherent in us. He agreed with Hume that we cannot know with certainty what the world is like 'in itself.' We can only know what the world is like 'for me'--or for everybody. Kant's greatest contribution to philosophy is the dividing line he draws between things in themselves--das Ding an sich-- and things as they appear to us."
"I'm not so good at German."
"Kant made an important distinction between 'the thing in itself and 'the thing for me.' We can never have certain knowledge of things 'in themselves.' We can only know how things 'appear' to us. On the other hand, prior to any particular experience we can say something about how things will be perceived by the human mind."
"We can?"
"Before you go out in the morning, you cannot know what you will see or experience during the day. But you can know that what you see and experience will be perceived as happening in time and space. You can moreover be confident that the law of cause and effect will apply, simply because you carry it with you as part of your consciousness."
"But you mean we could have been made differently?"
"Yes, we could have had a different sensory apparatus. And we could have had a different sense or time and a different feeling about space. We could even have been created in such a way that we would not go around searching for the cause of things that happen around us."
"How do you mean?"
"Imagine there's a cat lying on the floor in the living room. A ball comes rolling into the room. What does the cat do?"
"I've tried that lots of times. The cat will run after the ball."
"All right. Now imagine that you were sitting in that same room. If you suddenly see a ball come rolling in, would you also start running after it?"
"First, I would turn around to see where the ball came from."
"Yes, because you are a human being, you will inevitably look for the cause of every event, because the law of causality is part of your makeup."
"So Kant says."
"Hume showed that we can neither perceive nor prove natural laws. That made Kant uneasy. But he believed he could prove their absolute validity by showing that in reality we are talking about the laws of human cognition."
"Will a child also turn around to see where the ball came from?"
"Maybe not. But Kant pointed out that a child's reason is not fully developed until it has had some sensory material to work with. It is altogether senseless to talk about an empty mind."
"No, that would be a very strange mind."
"So now let's sum up. According to Kant, there are two elements that contribute to man's knowledge of the world. One is the external conditions that we cannot know of before we have perceived them through the senses. We can call this the material of knowledge. The other is the internal conditions in man himself--such as the perception of events as happening in time and space and as processes conforming to an unbreakable law of causality. We can call this the form of knowledge."
Alberto and Sophie remained seated for a while gazing out of the window. Suddenly Sophie saw a little girl between the trees on the opposite side of the lake.
"Look!" said Sophie. "Who's that?"
"I'm sure I don't know."
The girl was only visible for a few seconds, then she was gone. Sophie noticed that she was wearing some kind of red hat.
"We shall under no circumstances let ourselves be distracted."
"Go on, then."
"Kant believed that there are clear limits to what we can know. You could perhaps say that the mind's 'glasses' set these limits."
"In what way?"
"You remember that philosophers before Kant had discussed the really 'big' questions--for instance, whether man has an immortal soul, whether there is a God, whether nature consists of tiny indivisible particles, and whether the universe is finite or infinite."
"Yes."
"Kant believed there was no certain knowledge to be obtained on these questions. Not that he rejected this type of argument. On the contrary. If he had just brushed these questions aside, he could hardly have been called a philosopher."
"What did he do?"
"Be patient. In such great philosophical questions, Kant believed that reason operates beyond the limits of what we humans can comprehend. At the same time, there is in our nature a basic desire to pose these same questions. But when, for example, we ask whether the universe is finite or infinite, we are asking about a totality of which we ourselves are a tiny part. We can therefore never completely know this totality."
"Why not?"
"When you put the red glasses on, we demonstrated that according to Kant there are two elements that contribute to our knowledge of the world."
"Sensory perception and reason."
"Yes, the material of our knowledge comes to us through the senses, but this material must conform to the attributes of reason. For example, one of the attributes of reason is to seek the cause of an event."
"Like the ball rolling across the floor."
"If you like. But when we wonder where the world came from--and then discuss possible answers--reason is in a sense 'on hold.' For it has no sensory material to process, no experience to make use of, because we have never experienced the whole of the great reality that we are a tiny part of."
"We are--in a way--a tiny part of the ball that comes rolling across the floor. So we can't know where it came from."
"But it will always be an attribute of human reason to ask where the ball comes from. That's why we ask and ask, we exert ourselves to the fullest to find answers to all the deepest questions. But we never get anything firm to bite on; we never get a satisfactory answer because reason is not locked on."
"I know exactly how that feels, thank you very much."
"In such weighty questions as to the nature of reality, Kant showed that there will always be two contrasting viewpoints that are equally likely or unlikely, depending on what our reason tells us."
"Examples, please."
"It is just as meaningful to say that the world must have had a beginning in time as to say that it had no such beginning. Reason cannot decide between them. We can allege that the world has always existed, but con anything always have existed if there was never any beginning? So now we are forced to adopt the opposite view.
"We say that the world must have begun sometime-- and it must have begun from nothing, unless we want to talk about a change from one state to another. But can something come from nothing, Sophie?"
"No, both possibilities are equally problematic. Yet it seems one of them must be right and the other wrong."
"You probably remember that Democritus and the materialists said that nature must consist of minimal parts that everything is made up of. Others, like Descartes, believed that it must always be possible to divide extended reality into ever smaller parts. But which of them was right?"
"Both. Neither."
"Further, many philosophers named freedom as one of man's most important values. At the same time we saw philosophers like the Stoics, for example, and Spinoza, who said that everything happens through the necessity of natural law. This was another case of human reason being unable to make a certain judgment, according to Kant."
"Both views are equally reasonable and unreasonable."
"Finally, we are bound to fail if we attempt to prove the existence of God with the aid of reason. Here the rationalists, like Descartes, had tried to prove that there must be a God simply because we have the idea of a 'supreme being.' Others, like Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, decided that there must be a God because every-thing must have a first cause."
"What did Kant think?"
"He rejected both these proofs of the existence of God. Neither reason nor experience is any certain basis for claiming the existence of God. As far as reason goes, it is just as likely as it is unlikely that God exists."
"But you started by saying that Kant wanted to preserve the basis for Christian faith."
"Yes, he opened up a religious dimension. There, where both reason and experience fall short, there occurs a vacuum that can be filled by faith."
"That's how he saved Christianity?"
"If you will. Now, it might be worth noting that Kant was a Protestant. Since the days of the Reformation, Protestantism has been characterized by its emphasis on faith. The Catholic Church, on the other hand, has since the early Middle Ages believed more in reason as a pillar of faith.
"But Kant went further than simply to establish that these weighty questions should be left to the faith of the individual. He believed that it is essential for morality to presuppose that man has an immortal soul, that God exists, and that man has a free will."
"So he does the same as Descartes. First he is very critical of everything we can understand. And then he smuggles God in by the back door."
"But unlike Descartes, he emphasizes most particularly that it is not reason which brought him to this point but faith. He himself called faith in the immortal soul, in God's existence, and in man's free will practical postulates."
"Which means?"
"To 'postulate' something is to assume something that cannot be proved. By a 'practical postulate,' Kant meant something that had to be assumed for the sake of 'praxis,' or practice; that is to say, for man's morality. 'It is a moral necessity to assume the existence of God,' he said."
Suddenly there was a knock at the door. Sophie got up, but as Alberto gave no sign of rising, she asked: "Shouldn't we see who it is?"
Alberto shrugged and reluctantly got up. They opened the door, and a little girl stood there in a white summer dress and a red bonnet. It was the girl they had seen on the other side of the lake. Over one arm she carried a basket of food.
"Hi," said Sophie. "Who are you?"
"Can't you see I am Little Red Ridinghood?"
Sophie looked at Alberto, and Alberto nodded.
"You heard what she said."
"I'm looking for my grandmother's house," said the girl. "She is old and sick, but I'm taking her some food."
"It's not here," said Alberto, "so you'd better get on your way."
He gestured in a way that reminded Sophie of the way you brush off a fly.
"But I'm supposed to deliver a letter," continued the girl in the red bonnet.
With that, she took out a small envelope and handed it to Sophie. Then she went skipping away.
"Watch out for the wolf!" Sophie called after her.
Alberto was already on his way back into the living room.
"Just think! That was Little Red Ridinghood," said Sophie.
"And it's no good warning her. She will go to her grandmother's house and be eaten by the wolf. She never learns. It will repeat itself to the end of time "
"But I have never heard that she knocked on the door of another house before she went to her grandmother's."
"A bagatelle, Sophie."
Now Sophie looked at the envelope she had been given. It was addressed "To Hilde." She opened it and read aloud:
Dear Hilde, If the human brain was simple enough for us to understand, we would still be so stupid that we couldn't understand it. Love, Dad.
Alberto nodded. "True enough. I believe Kant said something to that effect. We cannot expect to understand what we are. Maybe we can comprehend a flower or an insect, but we can never comprehend ourselves. Even less can we expect to comprehend the universe."
Sophie had to read the cryptic sentence in the note to Hilde several times before Alberto went on: "We are not going to be interrupted by sea serpents and the like. Before we stop for today, I'll tell you about Kant's ethics."
"Please hurry. I have to go home soon."
"Hume's skepticism with regard to what reason and the senses can tell us forced Kant to think through many of life's important questions again. Not least in the area of ethics."
"Didn't Hume say that you can never prove what is right and what is wrong2 You can't draw conclusions from is - sentence? to ought-sentences."
"For Hume it was neither our reason nor our experience that determined the difference between right and wrong. It was simply our sentiments. This was too tenuous a basis for Kant."
"I can imagine."
"Kant had always felt that the difference between right and wrong was a matter of reason, not sentiment. In this he agreed with the rationalists, who said the ability to distinguish between right and wrong is inherent in human reason. Everybody knows what is right or wrong, not because we have learned it but because it is born in the mind. According to Kant, everybody has 'practical reason,' that is, the intelligence that gives us the capacity to discern what is right or wrong in every case."
"And that is innate?"
"The ability to tell right from wrong is just as innate as all the other attributes of reason. Just as we are all intelligent beings, for example, perceiving everything as having a causal relation, we all have access to the same universal moral law.
"This moral law has the same absolute validity as the physical laws. It is just as basic to our morality as the statements that everything has a cause, or that seven plus five is twelve, are basic to our intelligence."
"And what does that moral law say?"
"Since it precedes every experience, it is 'formal.' That is to say, it is not bound to any particular situation of moral choice. For it applies to all people in all societies at all times. So it does not say you shall do this or this if you find yourself in that or that situation. It says how you are to behave in all situations."
"But what is the point of having a moral law implanted inside yourself if it doesn't tell you what to do in specific situations?"
"Kant formulates the moral law as a categorical imperative. By this he means that the moral law is 'categorical,' or that it applies to all situations. It is, moreover, 'imperative,' which means it is commanding and therefore absolutely authoritative."
"Kant formulates this 'categorical imperative' in several ways. First he says: Act as if the maxim of your action were to become through your will a Universal Law of Nature."
"So when I do something, I must make sure I want everybody else to do the same if they are in the same situation."
"Exactly. Only then will you be acting in accordance with the moral law within you. Kant also formulates the 'categorical imperative' in this way: Act in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never simply as a means, but always at the same time as an end."
"So we must not exploit other people to our own advantage."
"No, because every man is an end in himself. But that does not only apply to others, it also applies to you yourself. You must not exploit yourself as a mere means to achieving something, either."
"It reminds me of the golden rule: Do unto others . . ."
"Yes, that is also a 'formal' rule of conduct that basically covers all ethical choices. You could say that the golden rule says the same thing as Kant's universal law of morals."
"But surely this is only an assertion. Hume was probably right in that we can't prove what is right or wrong by reason."
"According to Kant, the law of morals is just as absolute and just as universal as the law of causality. That cannot be proved by reason either, but it is nevertheless absolute and unalterable. Nobody would deny that."
"I get the feeling that what we are really talking about is conscience. Because everybody has a conscience, don't they?"
"Yes. When Kant describes the law of morals, he is describing the human conscience. We cannot prove what our conscience tells us, but we know it, nevertheless."
"Sometimes I might only be kind and helpful to others because I know it pays off. It could be a way of becoming popular."
"But if you share with others only to be popular, you are not acting out of respect for moral law. You might be acting in accordance with moral law--and that could be fair enough--but if it is to be a moral action, you must have conquered yourself. Only when you do something purely out of duty can it be called a moral action. Kant's ethics is therefore sometimes called duty ethics."
"I can feel it my duty to collect money for the Red Cross or the church bazaar."
"Yes, and the important thing is that you do it because you know it is right. Even if the money you collect gets lost in the street, or is not sufficient to feed all the mouths it is intended to, you obeyed the moral law. You acted out of good will, and according to Kant, it is this good will which determines whether or not the action was morally right, not the consequences of the action. Kant's ethics is therefore also called a good will ethic."
"Why was it so important to him to know exactly when one acts out of respect for moral law? Surely the most important thing is that what we do really helps other peo-pie."
"Indeed it is and Kant would certainly not disagree. But only when we know in ourselves that we are acting out of respect for moral law are we acting freely."
"We act freely only when we obey a law? Isn't that kind of peculiar?"
"Not according to Kant. You perhaps remember that he had to 'assume'or 'postulate' that man has a free will. This is an important point, because Kant also said that everything obeys the law of causality. How, then, can we have a free will?"
"Search me."
"On this point Kant divides man into two parts in a way not dissimilar to the way Descartes claimed that man was a 'dual creature,' one with both a body and a mind. As material creatures, we are wholly and fully at the mercy of causality's unbreakable law, says Kant. We do not decide what we perceive--perception comes to us through necessity and influences us whether we like it or not. But we are not only material creatures--we are also creatures of reason.
"As material beings we belong wholly to the natural world. We are therefore subject to causal relations. As such, we have no free will. But as rational beings we have a part in what Kant calls das Ding an sich--that is, the world as it exists in itself, independent of our sensory impressions. Only when we follow our 'practical reason'-- which enables us to make moral choices--do we exercise our free will, because when we conform to moral law, it is we who make the law we are conforming to."
"Yes, that's true in a way. It is me, or something in me, which tells me not to be mean to others."
"So when you choose not to be mean--even if it is against your own interests--you are then acting freely."
"You're not especially free or independent if you just do whatever you want, in any case."
"One can become a slave to all kinds of things. One can even become a slave to one's own egoism. Independence and freedom are exactly what are required to rise above one's desires and vices."
"What about animals? I suppose they just follow their inclinations and needs. They don't have any freedom to follow moral law, do they?"
"No, that's the difference between animals and humans."
"I see that now."
"And finally we could perhaps say that Kant succeeded in showing the way out of the impasse that philosophy had reached in the struggle between rationalism and empiricism. With Kant, an era in the history of philosophy is therefore at an end. He died in 1804, when the cultural epoch we call Romanticism was in the ascendant. One of his most quoted sayings is carved on his gravestone in Konigsberg: Two things fill my mind with ever-increasing wonder and awe, the more often and the more intensely the reflection dwells on them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.' "
Alberto leaned back in his chair. "That's it," he said. "I think I have told you what's most important about Kant."
"Anyway, it's a quarter past four."
"But there is just one thing. Please give me a minute."
"I never leave the classroom before the teacher is finished."
"Did I say that Kant believed we had no freedom if we lived only as creatures of the senses?"
"Yes, you said something like that."
"But if we obey universal reason we are free and independent. Did I say that, too?"
"Yes. Why are you saying it again now?"
Alberto leaned toward Sophie, looked deep into her eyes, and whispered: "Don't believe everything you see, Sophie."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Just turn the other way, child."
"Now, I don't understand what you mean at all."
"People usually say, I'll believe that when I see it. But don't believe what you see, either."
"You said something like that once before."
"Yes, about Parmenides."
"But I still don't know what you mean."
"Well, we sat out there on the step, talking. Then that so-called sea serpent began to flap about in the water."
"Wasn't it peculiar!"
"Not at all. Then Little Red Ridinghood came to the door. 'I'm looking for my grandmother's house.' What a silly performance! It's just the major's tricks, Sophie. Like the banana message and that idiotic thunderstorm."
"Do you think ... ?"
"But I said I had a plan. As long as we stick to our reason, he can't trick us. Because in a way we are free. He can let us 'perceive' all kinds of things; nothing would surprise me. If he lets the sky go dark or elephants fly, I shall only smile. But seven plus five is twelve. That's a fact that survives all his comic-strip effects. Philosophy is the opposite of fairy tales."
Sophie sat for a moment staring at him in amazement.
"Off you go," he said finally. "I'll call you for a session on Romanticism. You also need to hear about Hegel and Kierkegaard. But there's only a week to go before the major arrives at Kjevik airport. Before then, we must manage to free ourselves from his gluey fantasies. I'll say no more, Sophie. Except that I want you to know I'm working on a wonderful plan for both of us."
"I'll be off, then."
"Wait--we may have forgotten the most important thing."
"What's that?"
"The birthday song, Sophie. Hilde is fifteen today."
"So am I."
"You are, too, yes. Let's sing then."
They both stood up and sang:
"Happy Birthday to You."
It was half-past four. Sophie ran down to the water's edge and rowed over to the other side. She pulled the boat up into the rushes and began to hurry through the woods.
When she reached the path, she suddenly noticed something moving between the trees. She wondered if it was Little Red Ridinghood wandering alone through the woods to her grandmother's, but the figure between the trees was much smaller.
She went nearer. The figure was no bigger than a doll. It was brown and was wearing a red sweater.
Sophie stopped dead in her tracks when she realized it was a teddy bear.
That someone could have left a teddy bear in the forest was in itself no surprise. But this teddy bear was alive, and seemed intensely preoccupied.
"Hi," said Sophie.
"My name is Winnie-the-Pooh," said the teddy bear, "and I have unfortunately lost my way in the woods on this otherwise very fine day. I have certainly never seen you before."
"Maybe I'm the one who has never been here before," said Sophie. "So for that matter you could still be back home in Hundred Acre Wood."
"No, that sum is much too hard. Don't forget I'm only a small bear and I'm not very clever."
"I have heard of you."
"And I suppose you are Alice. Christopher Robin told us about you one day. I suppose that's how we met. You drank so much out of one bottle that you got smaller and smaller. But then you drank out of another bottle and started to grow again. You really have to be careful what you put in your mouth. I ate so much once that I got stuck in a rabbit hole."
"I am not Alice."
"It makes no difference who we are. The important thing is that we are. That's what Owl says, and he is very wise. Seven plus four is twelve, he once said on quite an ordinary sunny day. Both Eeyore and me felt very stupid, 'cos it's hard to do sums. It's much easier to figure out the weather."
"My name is Sophie."
"Nice to meet you, Sophie. As I said, I think you must be new around here. But now this little bear has to go 'cos I've got to find Piglet. We are going to a great big garden party for Rabbit and his friends."
He waved with one paw. Sophie saw now that he was holding a little folded piece of paper in the other.
"What is that you've got there?" she asked.
Winnie-the-Pooh produced the paper and said: "This was what made me lose my way."
"But it's only a piece of paper."
"No it's not only a piece of paper. It's a letter to Hilde-through-the-Looking-Glass."
"Oh--I can take that."
"Are you the girl in the looking glass?"
"No, but. . ."
"A letter must always be delivered personally. Christopher Robin had to teach me that only yesterday."
"But I know Hilde."
"Makes no difference. Even if you know a person very well, you should never read their letters."
"I mean, I can give it to Hilde."
"That's quite a different thing. Here you are, Sophie. If I can get rid of this letter, I can probably find Piglet as well. To find Hilde-through-the-Looking-Glassyou must first find a big looking glass. But that is no easy matter round here."
And with that the little bear handed over the folded paper to Sophie and set off through the woods on his little feet. When he was out of sight, Sophie unfolded the piece of paper and read it:
Dear Hilde, It's too bad that Alberto didn't also tell Sophie that Kant advocated the establishment of a "league of nations." In his treatise Perpetual Peace, he wrote that all countries should unite in a league of the nations, which would assure peaceful coexistence between nations. About 125 years after the appearance of this treatise in 1795, the League of Nations was founded, after the First World War. After the Second World War it was replaced by the United Nations. So you could say that Kant was the father of the UN idea. Kant's point was that man's "practical reason" requires the nations to emerge from their wild state of nature which creates wars, and contract to keep the peace. Although the road to the establishment of a league of nations is laborious, it is our duty to work for the "universal and lasting securing of peace." The establishment of such a league was for Kant a far-distant goal. You could almost say it was philosophy's ultimate goal. I am in Lebanon at the moment. Love, Dad.
Sophie put the note in her pocket and continued on her way homeward. This was the kind of meeting in the woods Alberto had warned her about. But she couldn't have let the little teddy wander about in the woods on a never ending hunt for Hilde-through-the-Looking-Glass, could she?
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