keep an eye on the mailbox.
When her mother came up at about eleven o’clock, Sophie was sitting at the window staring down the road.
“You’re not still sitting there staring at the mailbox!” she said.
“I can look at whatever I like.”
“I really think you must be in love, Sophie. But if he is going to bring you another letter, he certainly won’t come in the middle of the night.”
Yuck! Sophie loathed all that soppy talk about love. But she had to let her mother go on believing it was true.
“Is he the one who told you about the rabbit and the top hat?” her mother asked.
Sophie nodded.
“He—he doesn’t do drugs, does he?”
Now Sophie felt really sorry for her mother. She couldn’t go on letting her worry this way, although it was completely nutty of her to think that just because someone had a slightly bizarre idea he must be on something. Grownups really were idiotic sometimes.
She said, “Mom, I promise you once and for all I’ll never do any of that stuff... and he doesn’t either. But he is very interested in philosophy.”
“Is he older than you?”
Sophie shook her head.
“The same age?”
Sophie nodded.
“Well, I’m sure he’s very sweet, darling. Now I think you should try and get some sleep.”
But Sophie stayed sitting by the window for what seemed like hours. At last she could hardly keep her eyes open. It was one o’clock.
She was just about to go to bed when she suddenly caught sight of a shadow emerging from the woods.
Although it was almost dark outside, she could make out the shape of a human figure. It was a man, and Sophie thought he looked quite old. He was certainly not her age! He was wearing a beret of some kind.
She could have sworn he glanced up at the house, but Sophie’s light was not on. The man went straight up to the mailbox and dropped a big envelope into it. As he let go of it, he caught sight of Sophie’s letter. He reached down into the mailbox and fished it up. The next minute he was walking swiftly back toward the woods. He hurried down the woodland path and was gone.
Sophie felt her heart pounding. Her first instinct was to run after him in her pajamas but she didn’t dare run after a stranger in the middle of the night. But she did have to go out and fetch the envelope.
After a minute or two she crept down the stairs, opened the front door quietly, and ran to the mailbox. In a flash she was back in her room with the envelope in her hand. She sat on her bed, holding her breath. After a few minutes had passed and all was still quiet in the house, she opened the letter and began to read.
She knew this would not be an answer to her own letter. That could not arrive until tomorrow.
FATE
Good morning once again, my dear Sophie. In case you should get any ideas, let me make it quite clear that you must never attempt to check up on me. One day we will meet, but I shall be the one to decide when and where. And that’s final. You are not going to disobey me, are you?
But to return to the philosophers. We have seen how they tried to find natural explanations for the transformations in Nature. Previously these things had been explained through myths.
Old superstitions had to be cleared away in other areas as well. We see them at work in matters of sickness and health as well as in political events. In both these areas the Greeks were great believers in fatalism.
Fatalism is the belief that whatever happens is predestined. We find this belief all over the world, not only throughout history but in our own day as welt. Here in the Nordic countries we find a strong belief in “lagnadan,” or fate, in the old Icelandic sagas of the Edda.
We also find the belief, both in Ancient Greece and in other parts of the world, that people could learn their fate from some form of oracle. In other words, that the fate of a person or a country could be foreseen in various ways.
There are still a lot of people who believe that they can tell your fortune in the cards, read your palm, or predict your future in the stars.
A special Norwegian version of this is telling your fortune in coffee cups. When a coffee cup is empty there are usually some traces of coffee grounds left. These might form a certain image or pattern—at least, if we give our imagination free rein. If the grounds resemble a car, it might mean that the person who drank from the cup is going for a long drive.
Thus the “fortune-teller” is trying to foresee something that is really quite unforeseeable. This is characteristic of all forms of foreseeing. And precisely because what they “see” is so vague, it is hard to repudiate fortune-tellers’ claims.
When we gaze up at the stars, we see a veritable chaos of twinkling dots. Nevertheless, throughout the ages there have always been people who believed that the stars could tell us something about our life on Earth. Even today there are political leaders who seek the advice of astrologers before they make any important decisions.
The Oracle at Delphi
The ancient Greeks believed that they could consult the famous oracle at Delphi about their fate. Apollo, the god of the oracle, spoke through his priestess Pythia, who sat on a stool over a fissure in the earth, from which arose hypnotic vapors that put Pythia in a trance. This enabled her to be Apollo’s mouthpiece. When people came to Delphi they had to present their question to the priests of the oracle, who passed it on to Pythia. Her answer would be so obscure or ambiguous that the priests would have to interpret it. In that way, the ieople got the benefit of Apollo’s wisdom, believing that e knew everything, even about the future.
There were many heads of state who dared not go to war or take other decisive steps until they had consulted the oracle at Delphi. The priests of Apollo thus functioned more or less as diplomats, or advisers. They were experts with an intimate knowledge of the people and the country.
Over the entrance to the temple at Delphi was a famous inscription: KNOW THYSELF! It reminded visitors that man must never believe himself to be more than mortal—and that no man can escape his destiny.
The Greeks had many stories of people whose destiny catches up with them. As time went by, a number of plays—tragedies—were written about these “tragic” people. The most famous one is the tragedy of King Oedipus.
History and Medicine
But Fate did not just govern the lives of individuals. The Greeks believed that even world history was governed by Fate, and that the fortunes of war could be swayed by the intervention of the gods. Today there are still many people who believe that God or some other mysterious power is steering the course of history.
But at the same time as Greek philosophers were trying to find natural explanations for the processes of nature, the first historians were beginning to search for natural explanations for the course of history. When a country lost a war, the vengeance of the gods was no longer an acceptable explanation to them. The best known Greek historians were Herodotus (484-424 B.C.) and Thucydides (460-400 B.C.).
The Greeks also believed that sickness could be ascribed to divine intervention. On the other hand, the gods could make people well again if they made the appropriate sacrifices.
This idea was in no way unique to the Greeks. Before the development of modern medicine, the most widely accepted view was that sickness was due to supernatural causes. The word “influenza” actually means a malign influence from the stars.
Even today, there are a lot of people who believe that some diseases—AIDS, for example—are God’s punishment. Many also believe that sick people can be cured with the help of the supernatural.
Concurrently with the new directions in Greek philosophy, a Greek medical science arose which tried to find natural explanations for sickness and health. The founder of Greek medicine is said to have been Hippocrates, who was born on the island of Cos around 460 B.C.
The most essential safeguards against sickness, according to the Hippocratic medical tradition, were moderation and a healthy lifestyle. Health is the natural condition. When sickness occurs, it is a sign that Nature has gone off course because of physical or mental imbalance. The road to health for everyone is through
