Blindness

much too much written about its origins), the calculus is an important founding event in European history. And while Newton and Leibniz get more 1. Modelled, ironically one must suppose, on the drawing by Blake, for whom Newton represented the blindness and alienation of rationalism. 162 A History of Mathematics than their share of attention in history of mathematics courses, they are either ignored or grossly misrepresented even in ‘historically’ minded calculus textbooks where one or

of the characters to others and especially to themselves. The tension may be heightened by events (the return of Orestes) and pseudo-events (the rumour of the death of Thésée, Athalie’s dream). But the drama stems from a process of revelation: a blindness to reality (ignorance or self-deception) is replaced by full knowledge of an unbearable truth. Here, too, is the source of the cruel irony which allows characters to hope in vain, for whatever they do is invariably opposed by a force greater than