And Jeremy, perhaps. But that’s for you to decide. I remember my own fifteenth
birthday so clearly, you know. It doesn’t seem all that long ago. I felt I was already
quite grown up. Isn’t it odd, Sophie! I don’t feel I have changed at all since then.”
“You haven’t. Nothing changes. You have just developed, gotten older...”
“Mm ... that was a very grownup thing to say. I just think it’s all happened so
very quickly.”
Aristotle
...a meticulous organizer who wanted to clarify our concepts …
While her mother was taking her afternoon nap, Sophie went down to the den.
She had put a lump of sugar in the pink envelope and written “To Alberto” on the out-
side.
There was no new letter, but after a few minutes Sophie heard the dog
approaching.
“Hermes!” she called, and the next moment he had pushed his way into the den
with a big brown envelope in his mouth.
“Good boy!” Sophie put her arm around the dog, which was snorting and
snuffling like a walrus. She took the pink envelope with the lump of sugar and put it
in the dog’s mouth. He crawled through the hedge and made off into the woods again.
Sophie opened the big envelope apprehensively, wondering whether it would
contain anything about the cabin and the boat.
It contained the usual typed pages held together with a paperclip. But there was
also a loose page inside. On it was written:
Dear Miss Sleuth, or, to be more exact, Miss Burglar. The case has already been
handed over to the police.
Not really. No, I’m not angry. If you are just as curious when it comes to
discovering answers to the riddles of philosophy, I’d say your adventure was very
promising. It’s just a little annoying that I’ll have to move now. Still, I have no one to
blame but myself, I suppose. I might have known you were a person who would
always want to get to the bottom of things.
Greetings, Alberto
Sophie was relieved. So he was not angry after all. But why would he have to
move?
She took the papers and ran up to her room. It would be prudent to be in the
house when her mother woke up. Lying comfortably on her bed, she began to read
about Aristotle.
PHILOSOPHER AND SCIENTIST
Dear Sophie: You were probably astonished by Plato’s theory or ideas.
You are not the only one! I do not know whether you swallowed the whole
thing—hook, line, and sinker—or whether you had any critical comments. But
if you did have, you can be sure that the self-same criticism was raised by
Aristotle (384-322 B.C.), who was a pupil at Plato’s Academy for almost
twenty years.
Aristotle was not a native of Athens. He was born in Macedonia and
came to Plato’s Academy when Plato was 61. Aristotle’s father was a
respected physician— and therefore a scientist. This background already tells
us something about Aristotle’s philosophic project. What he was most