Table Of ContentMargaret
Cavendish
Observations upon
Experimental
Philosophy
Abridged, with Related Texts
Edited, with an Introduction, by
Eugene Marshall
Margaret Cavendish
O
bservations upon
E
xperimental
P
hilosophy
Abridged, with Related Texts
Margaret Cavendish
O
bservations upon
E
xperimental
P
hilosophy
Abridged, with Related Texts
From the Second Edition, published
in 1668, in London, by A. Maxwell.
Edited, with an Introduction, by
Eugene Marshall
Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.
Indianapolis/Cambridge
Copyright © 2016 by Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
19 18 17 16 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
For further information, please address
Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.
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www.hackettpublishing.com
Cover design by Listenberger Design & Associates
Interior design by Elizabeth L. Wilson
Composition by Aptara, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Newcastle, Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of, 1624?-1674 author. | Marshall,
Eugene, 1974— editor.
Title: Observations upon experimental philosophy : abridged, with related texts /
Margaret Cavendish ; edited, with an introduction by Eugene Marshall.
Description: Indianapolis : Hackett Publishing Co., Inc., 2016. | “From the second
edition, published in 1668, in London, by A. Maxwell.” | Includes bibliographical
references.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016008617| ISBN 9781624665141 (pbk.) |
ISBN 9781624665158 (cloth)
Subjects: LCSH: Philosophy of nature.
Classification: LCC Bl299.N273 027 2016 | DDC 192—dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2016008617
Adobe PDF ebook ISBN: 978-1-62466-516-5
Contents
Editor’s Introduction vii
Life and Works ix
Natural Philosophy xi
Other Works, Other Themes xxv
Reading Cavendish Today xxvi
A Note on This Edition xxvii
Observations upon Experimental Philosophy
Chapters 1-3, 5, 15-17,19-21,25-26, 31,35-37 3
Further Observations upon Experimental Philosophy
Chapters 2—3, 5—8, 10—11,13—15 67
Selections from the Writings of Cavendish’s Contemporaries 83
From The Principles of Philosophy, by Rene Descartes 83
From Leviathan, by Thomas Hobbes 85
From The Usefulness of Experimental Philosophy, by Robert Boyle 89
From Micrographia, by Robert Hooke 90
From The Excellence and Grounds of the Mechanical Natural
Philosophy, by Robert Boyle 95
Bibliography 101
Index 105
v
Editor’s Introduction
Margaret Cavendish represents a seventeenth-century voice that has been
ignored or minimized for too long. Her English contemporaries knew
her work and even felt it necessary to respond to certain of her views,
even if they did not always do so by name. But because her views are
sometimes odd or unfashionable, and, certainly, because she was a woman
writing in the seventeenth century, later generations of philosophers tell
ing the story of our history have omitted her—even, one might say, erased
her. Thus, reading her now, and attempting to understand how she was
responding to her contemporaries, can help undo that distortion. And, in
the end, we might find that she has insightful and interesting things to say.
Margaret Lucas Cavendish, the Duchess of Newcastle (1623—1673),
was a philosopher, poet, playwright, and essayist. Her philosophical writ
ings were mostly concerned with issues of metaphysics and natural phi
losophy, but also extended to social and political concerns.1 Like Hobbes
and Descartes, she rejected what she took to be the occult explanations
of the Scholastics.2 Against Descartes, however, she rejected dualism and
incorporeal substance of any kind.3 Against Hobbes, on the other hand,
she argued for a vitalist materialism according to which all things in
nature were composed of self-moving, animate matter.4
1. Though I shall return to these issues below, I shall briefly gloss technical terms in this intro
duction in footnotes such as this one. Crudely stated, metaphysics is the study of the fundamental
features and nature of reality and might include the study of the nature of matter, minds, causa
tion, time, and space, among other things. Natural philosophy is the term for the philosophical
study of nature, natural beings, and natural phenomena; in Cavendish’s time this practice was not
significantly distinct from science.
2. The term “Scholastics” is a catchall for those who taught at the schools, most of which were
founded by and staffed with Christian—usually Roman Catholic—priests and monks. Their
philosophical training and orientation was thus, loosely speaking, consistent with and to a degree
determined by religious dogma and the Church’s philosophical commitments. Some thinkers of
the time, including Cavendish, accused these schoolmen of providing meaningless explanations
for natural phenomena that appealed to hidden powers of things to bring about their effects—
thus “occult explanations.”
3. Dualism is, loosely, the view that the mind and body are distinct substances, the mind being
entirely nonbodily, or incorporeal, and the body lacking any mental aspect; dualists such as Des
cartes held that the two distinct substances are united in the human being.
4. Materialism is the view that human beings—and all of nature—are made of matter and
nothing else; thus there are no souls or immaterial minds, as Descartes would have. Vitalism is
the view that matter is infused with a life force or power that moves bodies, living bodies in
vii
viii Editor’s Introduction
Specifically, she argued that the variety and orderliness of natural phe
nomena could not be explained by blind mechanism and atomism, but
instead require the parts of nature to move themselves in regular ways,
according to their distinctive motions? And in order to explain that, she
argued for panpsychism, the view that all things in nature possess minds
or mental properties; indeed, she even argued that all bodies, including
tables and chairs, as well as parts of the bodies of organisms, such as the
human heart or liver, know their own distinctive motions and are thereby
able to carry them out. These different parts of nature, each knowing and
executing their distinctive motions, create and explain the harmonious
and varied order of nature. In several ways, Cavendish can be seen as one
of the first philosophers to take up several interesting positions against
the mechanism of the modern scientific worldview of her time. Thus we
might add that she also presages thinkers such as Spinoza and Leibniz.
When she turned to discuss political and social issues, Cavendish’s
metaphysical commitments seem to remain. Cavendish was a staunch
Royalist and aristocrat; perhaps not surprisingly, then, she argues that
each person in society has a particular place and distinctive activity and,
furthermore, social harmony arises just when people know their proper
places and perform their distinctive actions. She is critical, therefore, of
social mobility and unfettered political liberty, seeing them as a threat to
the order and harmony of the state. Even so, her writings also contain
nuanced and complex discussions of gender and religion, among many
other topics.
Despite her conservative political tendencies, Cavendish herself can be
seen as a model for later women writers. After all, she wrote dozens of
books, at least five of which were on natural philosophy, under her own
name, a feat that may make her the most published woman author of the
seventeenth century and one of the most prolific women philosophers
in the early modern period. In addition to writing much on natural phi
losophy, she wrote on a dizzying array of other topics and, perhaps most
impressively, in a wide range of genres. Her philosophically informed
particular, and accounts for their behaviors. Hobbes was known as a materialist, though not a
vitalist.
5. Mechanism is the view, roughly, that nature and natural beings are organized as mechanisms
are, with their behaviors explainable in terms of the makeup of and relations among their
internal parts. It is, thus, a view about the makeup of such beings as well as a means of explaining
their behavior.
Editor’s Introduction ix
poetry, plays, letters, and essays are at times as philosophically valuable as
her treatises of natural philosophy.
Life and Works
Margaret Lucas was born in 1623 in Colchester into a family of aristo
crats and staunch Royalists. She received little formal education, being
tutored at home with her seven siblings, of which she was the young
est. She reports having spent much time in conversation with one of
her brothers, John, who considered himself a scholar and who would
become a founding member of the Royal Society, a group of researchers
and natural philosophers tasked by the Crown with improving natural
knowledge. She joined the queens court and served as a maid to Queen
Henrietta Maria, following her into exile in 1644, during the English
Civil War. While in exile she met William Cavendish, then Marquess and
later Duke of Newcastle. They were married in 1645.
While in exile in Paris and Antwerp, she reports discussing philosophy
and natural science with her husband and his younger brother, Sir Charles
Cavendish, who held a regular salon attended by Thomas Hobbes, Kenelm
Digby, and occasionally Rene Descartes, Marin Mersenne, and Pierre
Gassendi, which came to be known as the Cavendish Circle. Margaret
herself reports having attended several dinners at which these philoso
phers were present, though she denies having spoken to them about any
but the most superficial matters.
While her husband remained in exile, she returned in 1651 and again
in 1653 to England. This was during the reign of Commonwealth, dur
ing which her husband, were he to have returned, would have had to
renounce his Royalism and swear fealty to the Commonwealth, as was
required by the republican Parliament of the time.The Parliament did not
extend that requirement to women, however, as the Parliament claimed
that women were not capable of such political acts.
During the 1653 visit she arranged for the publication of her first
two collections of writings, Poems and Fancies and Philosophical Fancies.
She reports having delivered the second, more philosophical treatise a
few days too late to have it included with the first in a single publication,
which had been her original intention. The publisher was Martin and
Allestyre, at the Bell in St. Paul’s Churchyard, a well-regarded publisher
who later became the official publisher for the Royal Society. It is truly
