WOMEN IN MATHEMATICS 145 



study, where she wrote out the solution of the problem and 

 then returned to her bed. The following morning, on re- 

 turning to her desk, she found, to her great surprise, that 

 while asleep she had fully solved the problem which had 

 been the subject of her meditations during the day and of 

 her dreams during the night. Could the psychiatrist who 

 so loves to deal with obscure mental phenomena find a more 

 interesting case to engage his attention or one more worthy 

 of the most careful investigation ? 



Finally Maria Gaetana's opus ma jus was completed and 

 given to the public. It would be impossible to describe the 

 sensation it produced in the learned world. Everybody 

 talked about it; everybody admired the profound learning 

 of the author, and acclaimed her: "II portento del sesso, 

 unico al Mondo" the portent of her sex, unique in the 

 world. By a single effort of her genius she had completely 

 demolished that fabric of false reasoning which had so long 

 been appealed to as proof positive of woman's intellectual 

 inferiority, especially in the domain of abstract science. 

 Maria Gaetana's victory was complete, and her victory was 

 likewise a victory for her sex. She had demonstrated once 

 for all, and beyond a quirk or quibble, that women could 

 attain to the highest eminence in mathematics as well as in 

 literature, that supreme excellence in any department of 

 knowledge was not a question of sex but a question of edu- 

 cation and opportunity, and that in things of the mind 

 there was essentially no difference between the male and 

 the female intellect. 



The world saw in Agnesi a worthy accession to that noble 

 band of gifted women who count among their number a 

 Sappho, a Corinna, an Aspasia, a Hypatia, a Paula, a 

 Hroswitha, a Dacier, an Isabella Resales who, in the six- 

 teenth century, successfully defended the most difficult the- 

 ological theses in the presence of Paul III and the entire 

 college of cardinals. And so delighted were the women 

 especially those in Italy with the signal triumph of their 



