ABSTRACT
This solemn, prolix text yields its meaning in the light of another statement, which, paradoxically, through its sheer brevity can be superimposed: ‘One must, as far as possible, make science ocular’ [2]. So many powers, from the slow illumination of obscurities, the ever-prudent reading of the essential, the calculation of times and
risks, to the mastery of the heart and the majestic confiscation of paternal authority, are just so many forms in which the sovereignty of the gaze gradually establishes itself-the eye that knows and decides, the eye that governs.
