ABSTRACT
It is often said that mathematics is the science of the infinite. And yet, before the advent of Cantor's work at the end of the nineteenth century, few mathematicians even regarded the infinite as a serious object of mathematical study. Even when the infinite is not itself serving as an object of mathematical study, mathematicians can still be said to be exploring the infinite in so far as what they are studying presupposes an infinite framework. Thus quantum impels itself beyond itself; this other which it becomes is in the first place itself a quantum; but it is quantum as a limit which does not stay, but which impels itself beyond itself. The limit which again arises in this beyond is, therefore, one which simply sublates itself again and impels itself beyond to a further limit, and so on to infinity.
