The Legacy of Margaret
Cavendish1
Eric Lewis
Virginia Tech
By all accounts Margaret Cavendish occupies a unique but difªcult to
deªne position as a critic of early modern experimental philosophy. 作为一个
woman of prominence by both birth and marriage, she obtained a certain
degree of access to the leading intellects of her day; 因此, 她
has been often portrayed as an intellectual insider. She is said to have
dined with Gassendi, 笛卡尔, and Hobbes, the latter for whom her hus-
band was patron. Yet her works, as audacious as they sometimes are, 的-
pict their author as defensive, 孤立, and struggling to overcome barri-
ers of education, 语言, 和性别. At times she is compelled to
squelch rumors of plagiarism and defend her works as her own. Even her
friendly critics tend to be glib about the fruits of her pen. Despite her lit-
erary and philosophical works being widely ignored and more often re-
jected as incoherent than relevant when reviewed by her contemporaries,
the past three decades have witnessed a revival of interest in her scholar-
ship and the birth of new narratives concerning her intellectual impor-
坦斯.
Until recently Cavendish’s work generated little attention by historians
of philosophy and literature. Perhaps ironically, the Duchess’s literary rep-
1. This article surveys scholarship about Margaret Cavendish and reviews several recent
attempts to understand Margaret Cavendish’s critique of empirical science in terms of her
commitment to a feminist social agenda. The publications under review here are: 安娜
Battigelli, Margaret Cavendish and the Exhiles of the Mind, 列克星敦: University Press of
Kentucky, 1998; Eve Keller, “Producing Petty God’s: Margaret Cavendish’s Critique of
Experimental Science,” English Literary History 64, 1997; Sylvia Brown, “Margaret Caven-
dish: Strategies Rhetorical and Philosophical Against the Charge of Wantonness, Or Her
Excuses for Writing So Much,” Critical Matrix: Princeton Working Papers in Women’s Studies
6, 1991; and Lisa Sarasohn, “A Science Turned Upside Down: Feminism and the Natural
Philosophy of Margaret Cavendish,” Huntington Library Quarterly 47, 1984.
科学观点 2001, 卷. 9, 不. 3
©2002 by The Massachusetts Institute of Technology
341
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342
Legacy of Margaret Cavendish
utation survived mostly because she authored the biography of her hus-
band The Life of
the Thrice Noble High and Puissant Prince William
Cavendishe, Duke, Marquess, and Earl of Newcastle (1667), a source typically
scoured for information about the political fortunes and liabilities of the
Duke.2 William Perry, 然而, helped lift Margaret Cavendish from her
relative obscurity in his book, The First Duchess of Newcastle and Her Hus-
乐队 (1918). Despite the title, Perry devotes the ªrst part and major por-
tion of his work to discussing the Duke. His commentary on the
Newcastles centers around their literary contributions, and he margi-
nalizes Lady Cavendish by calling her “most famous and important single
work” her ‘historical’ biography, referring to the biography of her late hus-
band.3 He claims that the author “emerges from the text a fallible mortal
like the rest of us, only a triºe more warped and lopsided than modern
psychology tells us that we all are” (p. 4). 更远, Perry claims “all her
work looks insigniªcant next to the Life of Newcastle” (p. 315). This cri-
tique of Lady Cavendish’s literary talents epitomizes how she is remem-
bered by historians of literature and science for half a century: She deserves
recognition in spite of the substance of her labors because she enters an in-
tellectual world monopolized by men.
Lady Cavendish’s scientiªc exploits fare little better at the hands of
later historians. If her scientiªc methodology is not suspect or considered
severely hampered by circumstance, it is written off as outside her inter-
东方. Samuuel Mintz (1952) comments that Cavendish, unlike many of her
more famous contemporaries, could not rise above the stature of a virtuoso
and that she “would never submit to the discipline of scientiªc procedure,
because she saw no value in it” (p. 168). Worse still, he claims that she had
no interest in scientiªc methodology at all. Yet given her explicit critique
of Hooke’s microscopic work and her critical emphasis on observation and
technology as employed by the Royal Society, we could instead read Mintz
as saying that her methods were not those of science.4 Perhaps slightly
2. Perhaps realizing that her own intellectual fate would be tied to the fortunes of her
husband, Cavendish does not hide her own persona in the biography.
3. On page one of the introduction Perry claims that Margaret’s biography “purports”
to be historical, but suggests rather that it should be considered “an embryonic novel.”
4. The ªrst two of the three dedicatory letters and the ªrst preface to Observations (1666)
contain explicit denunciations of the methodology employed by Robert Hooke in
Micrographia. Her fanciful New Blazing World (1666) hides nothing when satirizing the
emphasis on experiments (especially using optical equipment) by members of the Royal
社会. These two works are lucid criticisms of the empirical methods employed (和
sometimes lavishly displayed) by the new Society. Perry’s further claims that Cavendish did
not consider knowledge of the natural world “a tool to be placed in the service of mankind”
(p. 168) hides the purpose of these two works and her interest in the medical implications
of matter theory. To the contrary, her criticism of the novel technologies celebrated by
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科学观点
343
more sympathetic to Cavendish’s philosophical exploits, Douglas Grant
(1957) could not help but conclude: “her fancy was irrepressible.” Conse-
经常地, in her most explicitly scholastic work in natural philosophy
(Grounds of Natural Philosophy, 1668), her fancy “revolted as irresponsibly
against the discipline she had tried to impose upon it as it had done in the
Blazing World” (p. 211). This earlier work is a utopian fantasy novel pub-
lished jointly with her Observations upon Experimental Philosophy in 1666.
But Grant is willing to contribute at least some of Cavendish’s fanciful
ways to circumstance. He muses: “as she was unable to check her conjec-
tures by experiment, she could never proceed to ªrmer conclusions”
(p. 195). Given the radically anti-empirical nature of Observations and
Blazing World, Grant seems to miss the point: Cavendish would not have
checked her results using the methods she so resolutely rejected.
Not until Robert Kargon’s discussion of Cavendish’s atomism is her
natural philosophy treated in its own right without prefaces or apologies.
很遗憾, Kargon portrays the Duchess as controversial because of
the atheistic implications of her atomism.5 Cavendish’s commitment to
atomistic matter theory, 然而, is here overplayed. Despite verses appar-
ently sympathetic to such matter theory in Poems and Fancies (1653) 和
Natures Pictures Drawn by Fancies Pencil to the Life (1656),6 the Duchess
later rejects the theory that bodies are composed of irreducible atoms “of
the selfe same matter; as Fire, Earth, and Water” to which all motion and
change can be attributed (1653, p. 10). Kargon’s commentary on Caven-
dish’s participation in the English venture into atomic matter theory is it-
self too narrowly conªned to make headway into her later philosophical
exploits. 尽管如此, the absence of critical commentary about Caven-
dish’s role as natural philosopher marks a distinct break from her earlier
many of her contemporaries ridicules the waste of time and effort of their use. She writes:
“The inspection of a Bee, through a Microscope, will bring no more honey, nor the inspec-
的, of a grain more Corn; neither will the inspection of dusty Atomes . . .” (观察结果,
“Preface to the Ensuing Reader”).
5. Sheehan and Tillery (2001) also exaggerate the threat of these ‘novel’ views: “Mecha-
nism and atomism were often considered dangerous, even heretical, to a society that re-
tained long-held organic conceptions of reality” (p. 16). They also claim that during the
civil war and “Puritan rule,” England was a “land that tired to keep out Enlightenment
ideas” (p. 8). While it is true that Hobbes (the most dramatic example) and others were
criticized for the atheistic implications of their work, there is little evidence to suggest a
real threat of censorship, much less “danger” to the purveyors of these ideas. Indeed a good
argument can be made that Protestant England was more open to these ‘novel’ views than
Catholic France, given the centrality of religious authority in the later.
6. Given the style of discourse, Cavendish’s brief commitment to atomic matter theory
even in the early works remains undetermined, though the verses quoted by Kargon are of-
ten cited as evidence of her early adherence to atoms.
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344
Legacy of Margaret Cavendish
biographers who seemed more interested in extolling the tribulations of
her thought.
Lately, historical interest in Margaret Cavendish has begun to focus on
her unique role as a woman critic of the new mechanistic philosophies and
emerging Royal Society. By linking her rationalist methodology, vitalistic
metaphysics and lamentations about women’s plight in society, a portrait
of an early pioneer in feminism and critic of modern science emerges.
Hilda Smith, 例如, considers Cavendish one of the ªrst feminists
and a member of a very small group of late seventeenth-century women
who “shifted the arena of the debate from qualities of individual women to
the natures of men and women” (1982, p. xiii). 史密斯, 然而, writes
cautiously about the ties between Cavendish’s interest in science and her
feminist political aspirations. “The duchess was fascinated by science be-
cause it promised both new ways of looking at things and new answers.
She was ªnally frustrated with it because both methods and answers varied
so widely from the things that concerned her” (p. 61). Smith does not try
to make sense of Cavendish’s speciªc doctrines, including atomism, 和
later vitalistic matter theory, royalism, or rationalism. Nor does she at-
tempt to link these doctrines except vaguely to Cavendish’s feminism.
相当, she says that though the seventeenth-century produced rich varia-
tion in political thought, none was speciªcally appealing to feminist
思维. Smith addresses Cavendish’s rationalism noting: “Feminists
linked their faith in reason to a distrust of custom, which perpetuated
both ignorance and women’s domestic status” (1982, p. 63). Given the
Duchess’s vehement criticisms of Robert Hooke’s microscopic works, tele-
scopic research and general methods employed by the Royal Society, 这
lack of speciªc connections between her metaphysical and epistemic
索赔, and her social/political commitments remains wanting in Smith’s
帐户.
Others interested in Cavendish’s unconventional role as philosopher
and critic of the emerging science and its institutionalization draw direct
ties with her feminism. Sylvia Brown (1991), Lisa Sarasohn (1984) 和
Eve Keller (1997) view her taking a position against a male dominated
科学. Brown describes her acting defensively through her adoption of
skepticism. Sarasohn and Keller argue that the Duchess takes an offensive
角色. Sarasohn claims Cavendish was forced to use a “full-scale” skepticism
in her attack: “on the authority of a male-dominated science, 和, by im-
折叠, an attack on male authoritarianism” (p. 294). Keller says that
Cavendish’s natural philosophy “suggests tentative moves toward a femi-
nist science being sketched by Evelyn Fox Keller.” Eve Keller claims fur-
ther: “Cavendish’s work relentlessly deconstructs the supposedly stable
epistemological categories that service the masculinist science she derides”
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科学观点
345
(p. 466). John Rogers (1996) joins this choir of voices linking Lady
Cavendish’s philosophy—in this case her early brand of vitalism—to her
女权主义. “Her architect atoms are forever engaged in the process of
building a secularized and feminized version of the radical Puritans’ holy
社区, an ideal community that was, at least for Milton, grounded
on the subordination of physical force to the force of reason” (p. 203).7
These attempts to describe Cavendish’s anti-institutional and anti-empiri-
cal commitments in terms of her pioneering feminist motivations, 如何-
曾经, conºates her anti-empiricism with her more unconventional literary
‘fancy’, isolating her from the more conservative social and scientiªc goals.
In life and literature, the Duchess’s dedication to the monarchy and to
the restoration of social order cannot be questioned. Even at her most fan-
ciful, the Duchess imagines her utopian “new blazing world” in terms of a
benign monarchy (though led by a Queen and her female advisor). 更多的-
超过, Cavendish derides the Royal Society (and speciªcally its emphasis on
observation and the use of novel technologies), not for unconventional rea-
儿子们, but rather for the intellectual mischief created by so many partici-
pants and the failure to produce any useful results. Cavendish’s social
议程, with the exception of women’s education and perhaps their
broader participation in society, looks thoroughly conservative and not in-
consistent with her critique of science. Even her vitalistic response to the
novel mechanical matter theories of Descartes, Hobbes, 也许
Gassendi, does not seem driven by any desire to usurp an existing order.
They rather appear to be an unschooled attempt to ªnd a niche that incor-
porates essential elements of materialism and vitalism.8 Cavendish never
explicitly states that mechanistic matter theory (or for that matter the em-
piricism being employed by the early Royal Society) should be rejected
because of its ‘masculine’ quality or association. If her motivation is im-
折叠, she hides it well. As we should expect, her philosophy instead
7. Rogers draws signiªcantly from works prior to Observations (1666) to make the ap-
parently implied link between gender and matter, and does not make sense of her abandon-
ment of atomism for a radically different form of vitalist matter theory later within this de-
scriptive context. He nevertheless argues that rational matter (as feminine) subjugates
itself to the “masculine” (non-rational) matter in her natural philosophy. He concedes that
Cavendish fails “to extend (her text’s) revolutionary conclusions from the world of material
particles to the world of human beings” (p. 204).
8. Recent scholarship has demonstrated the hybrid nature of mid to late seven-
teenth-century philosophy, especially concerning matter theory. Margaret Cavendish
should be understood in a similar light—one seeking compromise between several com-
peting views of nature. She is, 然而, essentially different from many other attempts to
marry theories from different sources because she lacked speciªc training in Aristotelian
hylemorphic matter theory, 和, 最后, did not share much of the technical vocabu-
lary common to others attempting to address the ‘novel’ philosophies.
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346
Legacy of Margaret Cavendish
struggles with the intellectual problems wrought by Cartesian dualism,
atomism and the materialism of Hobbes. These problems are also dis-
cussed by her contemporaries who often sought compromises between
scholastic hylemorphic matter theory and the Cartesian or Gassendist
mechanistic theories. Thus ‘epistemic categories’ were anything but stable
in the mid-seventeenth century when Cavendish began her attack on em-
偷袭主义 (and the novel mechanistic philosophies)—an attack designed
precisely to reestablish the epistemic stability she considered lost as a re-
sult of an over-reliance on observational evidence.
更远, Cavendish’s vision of women’s role in society proves difªcult to
expose. Her most extensive discussion of the plight of women occurs in
Orations of Divers Sorts (1662) under the heading “Female Orations.” But
here her personal perspective disappears into the fragmented dialogues.
Smith rightly claims “it is hard to be sure when she was being serious and
when merely argumentative” (p. 82). 尽管如此, the work contains a
radical perspective. The opening speaker of the dialogue says:
我们 [女性] Live and Dye, as if we were produced from Beasts,
rather than from Men; for Men are happy, and we Women are mis-
erable; they possess all the Ease, Rest, Pleasure, 财富, 力量, 和
Fame; whereas Women are Restless with Labour, Easless with Pain,
Melancholy for want of Pleasures, Helpless for want of Fame. Nev-
ertheless, Men are so unconscionable and Cruel against us, that they
endeavour to bar us of all sorts of Liberty (PP. 238–240).
But the various dialogues also present several opposing views with no ob-
vious resolution among the participants.
The Duchess’ own history does not reveal an obvious source for the se-
verity of her speaker’s lament. Her bleak description of women’s plight
does not appear related to her personal circumstance. Despite the hard-
ships of life in exile, where the Cavendish’s were separated from their for-
tune, she did not bear many of the burdens so common to her gender. 经过
all accounts the Duchess did not suffer a repressive marriage. She lauded
her husband and he her. The Duke encouraged Lady Cavendish’s writing
and published her works at his own expense. Yet she wrote in “A Funeral
Oration for a Young-Married Wife,” that marriage “is displeasing; 喜欢
Meat which is sweet in the Mouth, but proves bitter in the Stomack.” She
never bore a child, yet she wrote of the great pain, risk and suffering en-
dured by women (and unappreciated by men) 分娩时. Sara Hutton
(1997) concludes: “In spite of everything Margaret Cavendish said about
the educational and social disadvantages suffered by women—and most of
her charges ring true—both she and Anne Conway were undoubtedly
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blessed by opportunities which very few of their contemporaries enjoyed”
(p. 231).
科学观点
347
(1662)
The “Preface” to Orations
further obscures her own voice.
Among the various “places” she invites the reader, one is the oration on
“the Liberty of Women.” However she gives it no special priority saying:
“but if you regard not what Women say, you may Ride to a Country Mar-
ket-Town, and hear a Company of Gentlemen associate together their Dis-
course and Pastime” (Paper Bodies, p. 90). Thus she provides no guide for
her reader, instead portraying Orations as simply snapshots of dialogue.
To make matters more complicated, her earlier work The World’s Olio
(1655) begins: “It cannot be expected I should write so wisely or wittily as
男士, being of the Effeminate Sex, whose Brains Nature hath mix’d with
the coldest and softest Elements” (Paper Bodies, p. 136). A page later in the
Preface she continues: “But to speak truth, Men have great Reason not to
let us in to their Governments, for there is great difference betwixt the
Masculine Brain and the Feminine, the Masculine Strength and the Femi-
nine” (Paper Bodies, p. 137). Yet she concludes her argument by saying
that some women, by education, may become more learned than some
“Rustick and Rude-bred” men. Her argument for “some” women’s educa-
tion is thus embedded in a traditional sexist claim about the differing hu-
莫尔斯 (and thus inferiority) of women’s minds. There is little evidence to
show that she did not endorse the explanation of gender difference based
on humors.9
Thus in her brief treatment of the Duchess in The Death of Nature
(1980), Carolyn Merchant initially calls Cavendish a “feminist” and con-
cludes that she “presented one of the earliest explicitly feminist perspec-
tives on science” (p. 272). Certainly Cavendish presented arguments for
women’s education in natural philosophy and she also presented a perspec-
tive that decried women’s suffering within marriage. Yet it remains
difªcult seeing through the “often inconsistent, contradictory, and eclec-
tic” ideas and theories (p. 270) to ªnd her proper persona—to differentiate
between her feminism and her presentation of a feminist perspective.10
9. Cavendish’s argument in favor of women’s education, at least as presented here, 是
signiªcantly different from Poulain de la Barre’s claim in The Woman as Good as the Man
(1677). Poulain argues that women and men are essentially equal in reason, a position he
claims is implicit in Descartes’ rationalism.
10. Cavendish’s ‘feminism’ may not be as unique or radical as we would expect in her
语境. Participants of the popular Parisian conferences organized by Théophastrate
Renaudot often discussed issues pertaining to gender relations. At the conference held on
行进 17, 1636 the second question for discussion was “whether it be expedient for
women to be learned.” The ªrst speaker said many husbands “unjustly deprived women of
education” and then claimed that women’s circumstance, 记忆, curiosity and wit pro-
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348
Legacy of Margaret Cavendish
Margaret Cavendish has sometimes been portrayed incorrectly as an in-
sider in the intellectual scene referred to as ‘the Newcastle Circle’. Londa
Schiebinger (1989) 索赔: “Entry into European philosophical networks
gave Margaret Cavendish the background necessary for her work on natu-
ral philosophy” (p. 47), though Schiebinger is careful to point out that
Cavendish’s ties to Thomas Hobbes, Mersenne, Descartes and Gassendi
(considered members of the circle) were tenuous. Richard Sheehan and
Denise Tillery (2001) apparently concur with Schiebinger on this issue,
尽管如此, they quote William Petty’s Discourse made before the Royal Soci-
埃蒂 (1674): “For about that time in Paris, Mersennus, Gassendy, 先生. Hobs,
Monsieur Des Cartes, Monsieur Roberval, Monsieur Mydorge and other
famous men, all frequented and caressed by your Grace and your memora-
ble brother Sir Charles Cavendish, did countenance and inºuence my
studies” (Sheehan and Tillery 2001, p. 7). Sheehan and Tillery also feel
compelled to claim that Margaret, along with the two Cavendish brothers,
“formed the nucleus of that “Newcastle Circle” (p. 7). They say that she
“would listen intently to their (Perry’s above list of ‘frequenters’) 铁饼-
西翁, then later ask her husband and brother-in-law to clarify concepts”
(p. 7).11
领带, 然而,
The weakness of Cavendish’s
should not be un-
der-stressed, as the Duchess makes clear in the several prefaces to Philo-
sophical and Physical Opinions (1655). She defends herself against accusa-
tions that she had taken ideas from ‘professed philosophers’. She writes:
“for three or four visits do not make an intimacy, nor familiarity, nor can
much be learned therefrom, for visiting and entertaining discourse, 为了
vided them with educational advantages. He concluded: “If women joyn’d together with
Men in the discovery of (科学), who doubts but a feminine Curiosity would serve to
exacuate the point of Mens wits, distracted by extraneous Affairs, and make marveilous
progresses, and ªnd out sundry rare Secrets, hitherto unknown.” The third and last speaker
indicated that women were in more need of education then men: “were the Minds of
Women weak and imperfect, as is pretended, it would follow, that they have more need of
the Sciences to cover their defects” (Another Collection of Philosophical Conferences, 1665,
PP. 35–37).
11. Sheehan and Tillery go beyond claims that Cavendish was an ‘insider’, but also sug-
gest that her works were widely inºuential. “Again, Cavendish’s works enjoyed a wide
readership among social circles in England” (p. 15). They also say that her views had a
“broad appeal” (at least those found in New Blazing World). 最后, they skirt the is-
sue that her contemporaries who admit exposure to her ideas (quite few) generally de-
nounce them as incomprehensible: “If people of her time found Cavendish hard to under-
站立,
it was probably because they conceptualized reality from a quite different
perspective/paradigm” (p. 16). If it is true that Cavendish could have been widely
inºuential, much less that she was so, it would seem she would have shared the so called
“paradigms” of her day. Indeed it is Sheehan and Tillery’s claim that Margaret struggled
“to reconcile two competing paradigms, organicism and mechanism” (p. 13).
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科学观点
349
most part are either cautionary, frivolous, vain, idle, or as least but com-
mon and ordinary matter” (1655, “To the Reader”). She distances herself
further from her contemporary philosophers in the “Epilogue” to the same
工作. “I never spake to monsieur DeCartes in my life, nor ever understood
what he said, for he spoke no English, and I understand no other language,
and those times I saw him, which was twice at dinner with my Lord at
巴黎, he did appear to me a man of the fewest words I ever heard” (1655,
“Epilogue”). Likewise she claims no more than a superªcial relationship
with Hobbes and his work. She writes: “I never heard Master Hobbes to
my best remembrance treat, or discourse of Philosophy, nor I never spake
to Master Hobbes twenty words in my life” (1655, “Epilogue”). Caven-
dish also claims little to no familiarity with the work of Descartes and
Hobbes, saying simply that she does not have time to read their work.
We should consider Cavendish’s claims in context of her defense against
plagiarism and recognize the potential exaggeration in her denials. 但
her denials are consistent with other evidence. The historical record shows
only two occasions where Hobbes interacted with Cavendish. The ªrst is
his refusal to dine with Margaret during a trip she took to London in
1653, a story she tells in Philosophical Opinions. 在一个 1662 letter, Hobbes
responds to receiving a copy of Cavendish’s plays with surprise saying:
“For tokens of his kind are not ordinarily sent but to such as pretend to
the title as well as to the mind of Friends.”12 There is little further evi-
dence to suggest that Margaret Cavendish carried on an extended corre-
spondence with any important philosophers of her day.13 She did meet and
exchange letters with Constantijn Huygens, and she gave him a copy of
her poems in 1653. Huygens responded in a private correspondence to a
compatriot: “(她) extravagant atoms kept me from sleeping a great part of
last night” (授予 1957, p. 193). The Duchess and Huygens exchanged
several letters on the phenomenon of Rupert’s drops, molten glass that ex-
plodes when dropped into water. But this discussion was short-lived when
Huygens rejected her claim that the glass must contain an explosive (看
12. Letter, “Thomas Hobbes to Margaret Cavendish,” 9 Feb. 1662.
13. Despite the tale of Margaret dining with Descartes, Gassendi, and Hobbes, 我们
know that this was highly unlikely. Collectively, the three never dined together. 笛卡尔
spent very little time in France after 1628. Baillet’s La Vie de Monsieur Descartes (1691)
mentions two trips to Paris; 在 1644 and again in 1648. The only mention of Descartes
dining with Gassendi occurs during the later Paris trip (1648) where Baillet tells us that
due to Gassendi’s illness they didn’t actually dine together but “embraced” later in the eve-
ning. Given Descartes’ less than friendly relations with his atomist contemporary in 1644,
a meeting then seems doubtful. Of course had Margaret been at the table with Descartes or
his illustrious French contemporaries, Margaret’s “intent” listening would have been of lit-
tle use given her admitted lack of understanding French or Latin, an admission that occurs
more than once in her works.
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350
Legacy of Margaret Cavendish
授予 1957, PP. 193–196). Cavendish also had limited contact with
Henry More, but there is scant evidence of any signiªcant intellectual ex-
change between the two. Descartes’ surviving letters do not mention the
Duchess, and the Frenchman’s few correspondences to Charles and Wil-
liam Cavendish are “virtually transparent.”14 Her name is signiªcantly ab-
sent from the correspondence of Henry Oldenburg. The historical record
is also largely silent about any possible relationship Cavendish could have
had with Gassendi or Mersenne. Margaret’s claims of isolation thus seem
quite reliable.
The scientiªc environment in early modern England gave no favors to
女性; 然而, gender alone did not exclude Cavendish from the scene.
The Duchess suffered the rejection of her peers most directly as the result
of her lack of education in the ªeld she chose to criticize. Obviously her
gender prohibited her from obtaining a university education, something
she points out. 尽管如此, in Philosophical Opinions (1655), she shuns ed-
ucation as corrupting (“I have heard that learning spoils the natural wit”).
She also claims not to have time for either the study of ancient philosophy
or other languages: “likewise an objection for my saying I have not read
many Books; but I answer, for not reading many Authors, had I under-
stood several languages, as I do not, I have not had so much time; had I
endeavored to have been so learned therein, for learning requires close
学习, long time, and labor” (1655, “To the Reader”). Later she writes:
“my head was so full of my own natural phancies, as it had not roome for
strangers to boord therein, and certainly natural reason is a better tutor
then education” (“To the Reader”). Cavendish asks the reader to overlook
her gender when considering the merit of her work. 然而, her defen-
sive posturing in Philosophical Opinions largely reacts against accusations of
incoherence and the dubious authenticity of her earlier publication The
World’s Olio (1655) and Philosophical Fancies (1653)—works that are them-
selves highly critical of learning. Her reactionary style taints the work it-
self and has led Sylvia Bowerbank to conclude: “mostly her natural philos-
ophy consists of passages excusing and ºaunting her ignorance” (1984,
p. 400). Bowerbank’s characterization of Cavendish’s natural philosophy
may be a bit severe, but then so is Cavendish’s condemnation of all philo-
sophical scholarship and book learning more generally. Though the
anti-scholasticism is signiªcantly absent from Observations and later work,
in Philosophical Letters (1664), Cavendish attacks the diverse theories of
Hobbes, 笛卡尔, Van Helmont and Henry More. Her assault on schol-
14. Mordechai Feingold notes that issues raised in Descartes’ correspondence with the
Cavendish brothers “could be discussed independently of their recipients” as they acted
primarily as “conveyors of letters” (Feingold 1998, p. 698).
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科学观点
351
arship old and new, as well as university learning, characterizes her early
工作.
Cavendish’s own rationalization of her peer rejection reºects those criti-
cisms made by her opponents. Referrals to her philosophical works speak
in the least ºattering terms. After reading Cavendish’s Philosophical Fancies
在 1653, Dorothy Osborne concluded “that there [是] many soberer
People in Bedlam.”15 Samuel Pepys’ notorious diary calls Margaret a “mad,
conceited, ridiculous woman.” John Evelyn called her “a mighty pretender
to Learning, Poetrie, and Philosophy,” and his wife Mary claimed never to
have met someone so “full of herself” regarding her wit and learning.16
Personal attacks combined with criticism of both Cavendish’s philosophy
and poetry, and lasted though her publishing career.
Even Cavendish’s friend and Latin translator of her biography Life
(1668), the eclectic natural philosopher Walter Charleton, tactfully at-
tempted to decline comment on her work. “For your Natural Philosophy;
it is ingenious and free, and may be, for ought I know, Excellent: but give
me leave Madam, to confess, I have not yet been so happy, as to discover
much therein that’s Apodictical, or wherein I think my self much obliged
to acquiesce.”17 Charleton’s lukewarm reception of Cavendish’s natural
philosophy is signiªcant. He helped popularize the work of Descartes and
Gassendi in England, offering the ªrst translation of the later in English.
Previously he had translated the vitalist and controversial works of Van
Helmont—supposedly shifting his allegiance to the mechanist/atomist
philosophy of Gassendi. Both Battigelli and Robert Kargon consider
Charleton’s cool reception of Cavendish’s philosophy an attempt to avoid
the atheistic implications of her work. But they give no evidence that he
considered her work as such. Cavendish’s own profuse defenses of herself
and her work barely mention the accusation of atheism. Charleton will-
ingly defended the far more controversial work of Van Helmont, and later
sought to resurrect the atomism of Epicurus, who often suffered religious
ire. It therefore seems unlikely that Charleton would have been concerned
that certain aspects of Cavendish’s philosophy might have proved theolog-
ically controversial. Charleton, 尽管如此, remained a friend and corre-
spondent with Margaret.
William Cavendish, Margaret’s husband, is the rare defender of his
wife’s philosophical work. He wrote a dedication in verse to Margaret:
“Were the old Grave Philosophers alive, how they would envy you, 和所有
would strive who ªrst should burn their books” (Philosophical Opinions
15. Osborne, Letters to Temple, p. 79.
16. See Battigelli 1998, PP. 4–6.
17. See Battigelli 1998, p. 56.
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352
Legacy of Margaret Cavendish
1655, “To the Lady Marquesse”). He makes a similar dedication, 哪个
sadly acknowledges her contemporary dismissal, in Observations:
Book is Book of Books, and onely ªts
Great searching Brains, and Quintessence of Wits;
For this will give you an Eternal Fame,
And last to all Posterity your Name:
You conquer Death, in a Perpetual Life;
And make me famous too in such a Wife.
So I will Prophesie in spite of Fools,
When dead, then honour’d, an be read in Schools.
And Ipse dixit lost, not He, but She
Still cited in your strong Philosophy (观察结果 1666, “To Her
Grace the Duchess of Newcastle”).
Margaret Cavendish had dedicated this later work to “The most Famous
University of Cambridge,” changing her anti-scholastic tone from Philo-
sophical Opinions, 其中 (oddly enough) she had also made a dedication
to “the two Universities.” Even though Observations was written in direct
response to Hooke’s Micrographia, she appears to have taken the contempo-
rary rejection of her philosophy for given.
Cavendish did acknowledge that her husband and her brother-in-law
Sir Charles Cavendish discussed philosophy with her; and it may be
through Charles that she gained much of her limited understanding,
though direct evidence is lacking. In Philosophical Opinions, she says that
she learned the ‘names and terms’ of science “from my nearest and dearest
friends as from my brothers, my Lords brother, and my Lord” (“To the
Reader”). But by her own admission, she gathered this information “by
piece-meals” and not by “methodological education”—emphasizing the
constructive nature of her own ‘fancy’ upon the information given her. 如果
someone provided the Duchess with any sort of systematic training, 它
would most likely have been Charles. 查尔斯, unlike his brother, took a
more active interest in science, and William claimed that Charles ‘tutored’
Lady Cavendish. 还, Lady Cavendish dedicated Poems and Fancies, 还有
as Philosophical Fancies (两个都 1653) to Charles, not her husband. But any
active interest taken by Charles in Lady Cavendish’s philosophy, 也
the extent of her conversations with him, is largely speculative.
Margaret Cavendish’s natural philosophy reºects the uniqueness she
索赔. While in exile in France, she apparently adopted some form of
mechanistic atomism; 然而, 经过 1655 she had rejected atoms in favor of
a hybrid vitalist/mechanistic metaphysics, though she retained atomism’s
associated political metaphor. Anna Battigelli (1998) makes a convincing
case that Cavendish used atoms as an explanation for the civil war and po-
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科学观点
353
litical chaos that forced her and her Royal party into exile, 导致
their relative poverty during the nearly two decades of dislocation. 诗歌
and Fancies (1653) is full of references to atoms, chaos, war and the associ-
ated epistemic uncertainty of ‘other worlds’:
factious Atomes will agree; combine,
They strive some form’d Body to unjoyne.
The Round beate out the Sharpe: the Long
The Flat do ªght withall, thus all go wrong (p. 16).
This early work has a decidedly skeptical view of knowledge. Lady Caven-
dish portrays the mind as restless, and reason in torment as it tries in vain
to seek an understanding of nature. Authority ‘perswades the Mind to live
in Peace and quiet’ and thus avoid the chaotic dispare of philosophic en-
deavor. Despite vivid metaphors, 然而, Poems and Fancies, as its title
suggests, does not present any consistent epistemology or metaphysics.
The chronological succession of Cavendish’s titles actually shows a con-
sistent move away from her more radical skepticism, and a solidiªcation of
her natural philosophy: Poems and Fancies and Philosophical Fancies (1653),
Philosophical and Physical Opinions (1655), Observations upon Experimental
Philosophy (1666) and ªnally, Grounds of Natural Philosophy (1668).18 然而作为
early as 1655, Cavendish attempts to divulge a consistent metaphysics,
and reject the atomism she had previously espoused. Following the pleth-
ora of dedications and introductions (one of which is a “condemning trea-
tise of atomes”), Philosophical Opinions presents an explicit ontology: “Na-
ture is matter, 形式, and motion, all these being as it were but one thing;
matter is the body of nature, form the shape of nature and motion” (p. 4).
This rariªed ontology is not unlike Descartes’—the physical world con-
sists simply of matter in motion devoid of real qualities. Cavendish also
shares Descartes’ and Hobbes’ plenism. She claims vacuum to be an im-
possibility because of the inªnite degrees of matter. Indeed it is the
inªnite degrees of matter that allow her to explain all phenomena. 她
metaphysics is reductionary, though not obviously quantiªable, from an
ontological hierarchy of matter, motion and ªgure. But from the start of
her text, her hierarchy becomes convoluted by undifferentiated terms. 这
inªnity of ‘ªgures’ supposedly reduces to a more basic ‘inªnite of parts’,
from ‘ªgure’ comes ‘sizes’ and so on:
And although there is but one matter, yet there are inªnite parts in
那件事, and so inªnite sizes; if inªnite sizes, inªnite degrees of
bigness, and inªnite degrees of smalnesse, inªnite thickness,
18. Mendelson (1987), makes this same claim.
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354
Legacy of Margaret Cavendish
inªnite thinnesse, inªnite lightness, inªnite weightness; if inªnite
degrees of motion, inªnite degrees of strengths; if inªnite degrees
of strengths, inªnite degrees of power, and inªnite degrees of
知识, and inªnite degrees of sense (p. 1).
Cavendish’s metaphysics is apparently monistic materialism. Even knowl-
edge and sense are just a degree (rariªcation?) of matter. But at some level
motion becomes innate in certain material substances (“it turns to spir-
its”), though she denies such matter is essentially different from grosser
事情 (“tis but different degrees”). “Dull” matter and “Spirits” are appar-
ently differentiated by the former’s inertness and the latter’s “innate mo-
的,” though the very term “innate” seems to imply a difference in kind
or quality. 最后, the simple clarity of her reductionist scheme
quickly looses out to an odd mixture of otherwise technical philosophic
terminology and common vocabulary. This has led some modern scholars
to abandon attempts to follow the philosophic lineage of Cavendish’s
工作: “Margaret’s expression of her theories is so obscure and contradic-
tory that it would be a fruitless enterprise to try to trace their ultimate or-
igins or their precise analogies among other seventeenth-century thinkers”
(Mendelson 1987, p. 43). No current scholarship has attempted to explain
the precise relationship between Cavendish’s epistemology and meta-
物理.
Cavendish compounds the confusion within Philosophical Opinions by in-
cluding metaphoric terminology with her technical vocabulary. The work
is composed of over two hundred ‘chapters’, each of which is about one
paragraph long. Following the discussion of vacuum (Chap. 14), the divi-
sion of matter (Chap. 16) and the unity and order of nature (Chap. 15 和
17), Cavendish gives an explanation “of War, and no absolute Power”
(Chap. 18). What she means by “war” is apparently contrary motion, 或者
disagreement of the parts of matter, but one senses the treatise is tacitly
concerned with political order. Virtually all Cavendish’s explanations of
phenomena are couched in terms of order and chaos, or the more vitalistic
vocabulary of sympathies and antipathies. In her discussions of malady
and medicine she gives causal explanations based on the four humors. 然而
her commitment to this terminology is not consistently ontological (或者
qualitative). She often reduces humors and sympathies to motions of mat-
特尔 (“mixt motions makes mixt humours, and mixt tempers inclining to
each side, as the motions predominate”). At other times she speaks as if
humors and their related elements (空气, earth, ªre and water) are natural
kinds, not just degrees of matter. Her use of vitalistic vocabulary, 那里-
fore, cannot be explained in terms of a theoretical eclecticism, 反而
as borrowed rhetoric without the explanatory context of its normal use.
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科学观点
355
This may explain much of the criticism heaped upon her by her peers.
尽管如此, order and disorder of particles in motion does most (如果不
全部) of the explanatory work in her natural science, suggesting a political
analogy of order and chaos made more explicit later.
In Observations, Cavendish continues her obsession with order, 尽管
the tie between politics and natural science becomes overt. In the “Pref-
ace” her conservatism shows through when she claims that modern philos-
ophers “confounded both Divinity and Natural Philosophy, Sense and
原因, Nature and Art, so much as in time we shall have rather a Chaos,
then a well-ordered Universe by their doctrine” (p. C2). She continues her
attack by claiming that these unnamed philosophers have done nothing
but taken ‘parcels’ of the ancients, comparing them to “unconscionable
men in Civil Wars, which endeavour to pull down the hereditary Man-
sions of Noble-men and Gentlemen, to build a Cottage of their own; so do
they pull down the learning of Ancient Authors, to render themselves fa-
mous” (p. C2). 的确, she defends the entire institutional structure. “But
this Age does ruine Palaces, to make Cottages; Churches, to make Con-
venticles; and Universities to make private Colleges; and endeavour not
onely to wound, but to kill and bury the Fame of such meritorious Persons
as the Ancients were, 然而, I hope God of his mercy will preserve, 状态,
教会, and Schools, from ruine and destruction” (p. C2). Cavendish had,
当然, suffered the destruction of her own family estate at the hands of
Parliamentary forces during the Civil War, so her war references are clear.
Instead of criticizing learning and the ancients for the obscurity of their
ideas (and as a waste of her time), here she complains that her own lack of
education made her unable to penetrate their vocabulary. 尽管如此,
观察结果, written after the Restoration and her return from France ar-
gues for an old order recently reinstated and apparently still threatened by
novel ideas. Philosophy, 所以, must preserve order by reinforcing the
purity of the ancients, eschewing eclecticism and adhering to a rationalis-
tic methodology.
One can debate the historical legitimacy of the claim that early modern
science in England practiced an inductive methodology based on observa-
tion and experiment. The ºedgling Royal Society, 然而, believed that
it inherited the recent legacy of Bacon and understood itself to be practic-
ing science in a novel way.19 In particular, Robert Hooke celebrated the
19. The frontispiece drawn about 1666 and found in some additions to Sprat’s History of
the Royal Society shows three ªgures in the foreground: Lord Brouncker, president of the
Royal Society; the King; and Francis Bacon. In the background and surrounding the
ªgures are instruments of many sorts and a near full bookshelf. This frontispiece can be
juxtaposed against that of Cavendish, from Philosophical and Physical Opinions (1655) 在
which she sits behind a banister, isolated from the viewer. A table sits next to her void ex-
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356
Legacy of Margaret Cavendish
advantages of novel instruments that apparently proved the viability of
the new mechanistic philosophy and experimental method. Hooke dedi-
cated Micrographia (1665) to the Royal Society and its methods: “The rules
you have prescrib’d yourselves in your philosophical progress do seem the
best that have ever been practiced. And particularly that of avoiding dog-
matism, and the espousal of any hypothesis not sufªciently grounded and
conªrm’d by experiment” (p. 16). He attacked the ‘Peripateticks’ for bas-
ing their natural philosophy on the “useless” categories of matter and
形式, and claimed that the microscope and telescope demonstrated the
success of the new mechanick philosophy “to which this age seems so
much inclined” (p. 16). But Hooke also blamed novelty for the disorder in
society and philosophy. For him “the work of the Brain and the Fancy” led
science astray, and the methodology based on observation was a return to
the correct practice of old. 尽管如此, Hooke understood his work as a
contribution of “the great Philosophies of this Age.”
Cavendish’s Observations reads as a near word for word response to
Hooke’s Micrographia, and one should suspect her title is carefully chosen
for its irony. Where Hooke had praised the greats of his age, Cavendish
calls them “dead and withered leaves.” Where Hooke had claimed the
‘micrography’ and presented elaborately drawn
practical beneªts of
sketches of natural entities, Cavendish lists sundry discoveries and inven-
tions not made with the aid of the microscope or telescope. She claims that
observations through these instruments will “bring no more honey” from
the bee, nor another grain from corn. But the philosophic basis of her crit-
icism takes aim at the foundation of experimental science:
事实是, most of these Arts are Fallacies, rather then discoveries
of Truth; for Sense deludes more then it gives a true Information,
and the exterior inspection through on Optick glass, is so deceiv-
英, that it cannot be relied upon: Wherefore Regular Reason is the
best guide to all Arts, as I shall make it appear in this following
Treatise (“Preface to the Ensuing Reader,” p. D).
Cavendish’s rationalist agenda rings clear, and it links her conservative so-
cial agenda with her metaphysical emphasis on order.
The metaphysics of Observations are apparently a revision of her earlier
工作, but they are not explicit. 反而, she deals topically with the claims
and demonstrations of Micrographia. Cavendish’s main theme becomes the
epistemic limits of human scientiªc enquiry. Because nature is purely ma-
terial, and this matter is composed of inªnite varieties, it cannot be known
cept for a pen, ink and paper. Over and beside her head are winged cherubs. An inscription
reads: “Her library on which she looks/ It is her Head her Thoughts her Books.”
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科学观点
357
in its totality. She seems to retain her position that matter is all of one
种类, though she continuously refers to it as either animate or inanimate.
Contra Hooke’s empirical claims about knowing nature, Cavendish argues
that the inªnite degrees of matter prohibit an absolute understanding of
它: “Nature being Material, and consequently dividable, her parts have but
divided knowledges, and none can claim a Universal knowledg” (p. E2).20
Human science, she argues later, offers no privileged epistemic position;
尽管如此, knowledge is possible and sense should be subordinated to
原因. In “Further Observations upon Experimental Philosophy,” an ap-
pendage to Observations, she asserts: “Wherefore Reason will more truly
discover so much of Nature as is discoverable to one kind or sort of Crea-
特雷斯, then Art can do; for Art must attend Reason as the chief Mistris of
Information” (p. 12).21 In a following chapter Cavendish claims both the
sceptic and dogmatist to err, again arguing that nature cannot be known
in its entirety because of its inªnite degrees. But since “Nature never doth
actually run into Inªnite in her particular actions and parts” (p. 8), 这是
possible using reason and sense together to understand ‘her’ in part.
Cavendish’s rationalist epistemology is unique not for its radical skepti-
cism, but rather for its link with an incredible metaphysics (where reason
itself is just matter of some degree found in all natural bodies). Cavendish
can at best be described a mitigated skeptic—taking the middle road be-
tween dogmatism and skepticism “where otherwise their disagreement
will cause perpetual quarrels and disputes both in Divinity and Philoso-
物理层, to the prejudice and ruine of Church and Schools” (“Further Observa-
20. The criticism that matter cannot be fully understood because of its inªnite degrees,
or inªnite varieties, makes sense within the context of a debate between Hooke, 亨利
Power and Dr. Highmore concerning the potential ability of the microscope to settle cer-
tain metaphysical questions. The possible visibility of “subtle matter,” atoms, 和
“magnetical efºuviums” seemed a very real question for some early users of the microscope.
Power is critical of Highmore, 例如, in Experimental Philosophy (1664): “Some with a
Magisterial Conªdence do rant so high as to tell us, that there are Glasses, which will rep-
resent not onely the Aromatical and Electrical Efºuxions of Bodies, but even the subtile
efºuviums of the Load-stone it self” (p. 57). Given Cavendish’s commitment to plenism (的
a sort), her criticism of microscopy is sound with regard to its epistemic limitations.
21. It is not clear whether the Duchess meant “Further Observations” to be a separate
book or an appendage to Observations. Observations mimics Hooke’s work in many ways
while “Further Observations” contains a variety of loosly related disucussions concerning
natural philosophy. It is page-numbered separately. Following “Further Observations”
Cavendish published “Observations upon the Opinions of some Ancheint Philosophers.”
This work too is independently paginated. She completed Observations by adding yet an-
other essay: “An Explanation of some obscure and doubtful passages occurring in the
Philosophical Works, hitherto published by the Authoresse.” This third addition is
paged-numbered in sequence with her “Opinions of some Anchient Philosophers.” Finally,
New Blazing World, was published jointly with the collection.
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358
Legacy of Margaret Cavendish
系统蒸发散,” p. 34). 观察结果, 然而, was published in conjunction with a
novel reputedly presenting a subjectivist epistemology.22
Cavendish’s New Blazing World tells a fantastic tale about imaginary
peoples and worlds. Attached to Observations, at times it systematically
treats issues of natural science, epistemology and metaphysics within its
winding plot. Parodying the Royal Society, Cavendish tells of bird-men
and bear-men obsessed (among other man/animal combinations) 和
their microscopes and telescopes and bickering over their countless obser-
vations. Told to rid themselves of the instruments by their empress, 这些
natural philosophers beg to keep their looking glasses, although con-
vinced of their uselessness. “Besides, we shall want employments for our
senses, and subjects for arguments; for were there nothing but truth, 和
no falsehood, there would be no occasion for to dispute, and by this means
we should want the aim and pleasure of our endeavors in confuting and
contradicting one another” (p. 142). The empress allows them to keep
their toys, assuming their arguments do not go beyond the walls of the
学校. Blazing World treats, in similar tone, issues ranging from the mo-
tion of the earth to syllogistic logic. Inquiring into speciªc topics, 他们-
press convinces the expert animal-men, through rational argument, 那
their experimental/observational methods have led them astray, and cre-
ated disorder and error. This work of ‘fancy’ becomes pedantic as it moves
from issue to issue demonstrating the superiority of a rationalist method-
ology over observational science. It thus offers a sort of critique consistent
with Observations. 尽管如此, one must ask what this work adds to the
former arguments, if anything.
The recurrent theme of Blazing World is the relationship between epis-
temology, as indebted to empirical practices espoused by Hooke and the
Royal Society, and its subsequent impact on social order. Blazing World
thus allows Cavendish to extend her internal criticism about the ‘new’
scientiªc methodology into the domain of politics, something perhaps not
quite proper in a treatise about natural philosophy. The stability of the so-
cial hierarchy, and particularly the monarchy, is her chief concern. 这
Duchess becomes a character in her own novel as advisor to the empress of
the Blazing World. She tells the empress that she must secure her author-
ity against societies of learning: “dissolve all their societies; for ‘tis better
to be without their intelligences, than to have an unquiet an disorderly
政府. 事实是, 她说 [the Duchess], wheresoever is
学习, there is most commonly also Controversie and Quarrelling”
(p. 122). The criticism of empiricism is implicit as she concludes that
22. See Anna Battigelli’s Margaret Cavendish and the Exiles of the Mind (1998).
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科学观点
359
these societies “will never yield to Reason.” Social order of a particular
种类 (“the body should have only one head”) thus justiªes the censorship
of any group adhering to principles of knowledge that generate multiple
explanations—a rationalist methodology presumably lacking this effect.
It is difªcult to see that Cavendish could be interpreted as a subjectiv-
是. 相当, her mostly undeªned rationalism is used to argue against an
empirical science that leads to a multiplicity of world views and, conse-
经常地, social and political chaos. 尽管如此, Cavendish’s claims that
all matter is inherently rational (a thesis seemingly contradicted within
her own work), and that man’s observational status is essentially different,
but not superior to other perspectives (animals and even inanimate kinds
of things), appear remarkable. 更远, the Empress of the Blazing World
asks a group of spirits if the Duchess could have a world of her own to
治理. The spirits respond that there are “inªnite worlds”: “for every hu-
man creature can create an immaterial world fully inhabited by immate-
rial creatures and a populous of immaterial subjects . . . and that he may
create a world of what fasion and government he will, and give creatures
thereof such motions and ªgures, 形式, colours, perceptions, ETC. as he
pleases” (p. 185). But this often quoted passage explicitly notes that the
Duchess can only command an immaterial world. The passage follows a
discussion in which the spirits claim that the Duchess may not inherit a
material world, since there are “none without government already.” The
implication is that the material world is but one, and follows speciªc ra-
tional rules. 自然, being purely material according to Cavendish’s own
字, should be subject to one epistemology—presumably the correct
一. Cavendish never admits to multiple ‘truths’ in nature, and is espe-
cially keen to allow epistemic access to nature itself. She states this clearly
in her preface to Blazing World.
If you wonder why I join a work of fancy to my serious philosophi-
cal contemplations; think not that it is out of a disparagement to
哲学; or out of an opinion, as if this noble study were but a
ªction of the mind; for though philosophers may err in searching
and enquiring after the causes of natural effects, and many times
embrace falsehoods for truths; yet this doth not prove, the ground
of philosophy is merely ªction, but error proceeds from the differ-
ent motions of reason, which cause different opinions in different
部分, an in some more irregular than in others; for reason being di-
vidable, because material, cannot move in all parts alike; and since
there is but one truth in nature, all those that hit not truth do err,
some more, some less; for though some may come nearer the mark
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360
Legacy of Margaret Cavendish
than others, which makes their opinions seem more probable and
rational than others; yet as long as they swerve from this only truth,
they are wrong (“To the Reader”).
Battigelli supposes that Cavendish’s interest “lay not in the nature of the
physical universe but rather in the nature of the human mind” (1998,
p. 114). 然而, it is not the mind’s exile, but her own physical/political
exile as a result of social instability that is the key to understanding
Cavendish.
Blazing World is a political treatise. Only by ignoring the conclusion
can one claim otherwise. Ultimately the Empress and her adviser the
Duchess decide they must conquer the world from which the Empress
originally came. Summoning a navy they travel by submarine to the other
世界. Allied with her native country, the Empress destroys her enemies
and “did not only save her native country, but made it the absolute monar-
chy of all the world” (p. 214). Cavendish thus creates an analogy between
the rational order of the Blazing World and reason itself. Conºict is re-
solved in the novel when rational political order is reinstated. 原因,
likewise, is necessary to solve the problem of conºicting observations.
Even the council of the Empress’ own country receives ridicule: “Great
councils are most commonly slow, because many men have several opin-
ions: besides, every councillor striving to be the wisest, makes long
speeches, and raises many doubts, which cause retardments” (p. 209). 如果
we extend this critique to science by committee, where experiments are
replicated in front of multiple observers, the potential for conºicting
opinions is increased and resolution difªcult. Blazing World thus extends
the critique of observational science from the purely academic realm into a
discussion of political order more generally—all the while maintaining a
strictly hierarchical methodology designed to prevent diversity of observa-
tion and likewise opinion.
The relationship between Cavendish’s epistemology and her metaphys-
ics remained obscure until she reªned her view with the publication of
Grounds of Natural Philosophy (1668), her most scholastic-style work in
both title and form and her last attempt at a philosophical treatise. 在
Grounds, Cavendish drops her insistence on matter being of only one type
(though she remains a strict materialist claiming that in nature one cannot
talk of the non-material “because a corporeal part cannot have an incorpo-
real perception”). Instead she explicitly claims that two natural kinds of
matter exist: self-moving and not self-moving. This division allows
Cavendish to imbed all knowledge (both the senses and intellect) in mo-
的, while adding a third sort of matter.
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科学观点
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Neither can there be more than two sorts of matter, 即, 那
sort which is self-moving, and that which is not self-moving. 还,
there can be but two sorts of the self-moving parts; 作为, that sort
that moves intirely without burdens, and that sort that moves with
the burdens of those parts that are not self-moving: So that there
can be but three sorts; those parts that are not moving, those that
move free, and those that move with some parts that are not mov-
ing themselves: Which degrees are (in my opinion) the Rational
Parts, the Sensitive Parts, and the Inanimate Parts; which three
sorts of parts are so join’d, that they are but as one Body (p. 3).
While one may worry about the distinction between parts and matter in
this passage (why then are there not three types of matter?), Cavendish
clearly believes she avoids the problem of mind/body interaction to which
Cartesian dualism was subject.23 Nevertheless, she justiªes her claims con-
cerning rational thought over sense knowledge through her divisions of
事情.
The rational perception is more subtil and penetrating than the
sensitive; 还, it is more generally perceptive than the sensitive;
还, it is a more agil perception than the sensitive: All which is oc-
casioned not onley through the purity of the rational parts, 但
through the liberty of the rational parts; wheras the sensitive being
incumbred with the inanimate parts, is obstructed and retarded
(p. 9).
This link between metaphysics and epistemology therefore provides the
basis for a philosophical criticism of observational science, though the
foundation is nowhere explicit in her earlier response to Micrographia.
很简单, reason is free from the distortions of the senses because it is
a pure something (distortions evidently are a result of the inanimate).24 如果
the senses react more crudely because of their encumbered status, adding a
机器 (microscope or telescope) composed of still more ‘not self-
moving’ parts presumably can only make matters worse.
Cavendish’s philosophical grounds for her critique of observational/
experimental science only explicitly appears in Grounds of Natural Philoso-
物理层, where she modiªes her view of matter to make sense of reason’s prior-
性. The corpus of Grounds is also less indebted to political metaphor than
23. Of course Cavendish owes an explanation of how those ‘parts that move free’ inter-
act with those ‘parts’ that do not, especially given her previous commitment to plenism.
24. The ontological difference between the two types of matter remains problematic.
Cavendish later denies that something can be pure motion, yet she indicated that rational
matter is ‘pure’ in the sense it does not have non-self-moving matter attached.
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362
Legacy of Margaret Cavendish
her earlier work. 然而, she concludes the treatise with an appendix
that mixes discussions of regularity of motion, religion, and other worlds.
Here she refers to ‘parts’ as ‘societies’, relates happiness to regularity of
motion, and ªnishes with a description of the internal battle within her
own mind. The internal battle is waged where the ‘dullest and unbeliev-
ing parts,’ having sought refuge in her brain, are “pull’d out of their Pul-
pit, the Grandula; and not only so, but put out of their Society, 相信
they were a Factious Party, 哪个, in time, might cause the Society’s Dis-
solution” (p. 311). Like Observations before it, Grounds for Natural Philoso-
phy ends with a military analogy—conquering irregularity and diversity.
Cavendish’s natural philosophy underwent a reªnement consistent with
the chronological progression of her works. Initially reactionary, her cri-
tique of science only received its philosophical foundations in 1668 和
the publication of Grounds for Natural Philosophy. 到了这个时候, 她有
been ostracized from the community of natural philosophers. 然而,
like Hobbes, Cavendish’s failure to separate her rationalist epistemology
from its political commitments did not ªt the emerging methodologies of
the Royal Society. A growing commitment to technology, experiment and
mathematical physics excluded her as easily as gender barriers. 简而言之,
Cavendish’s arguments were directed equally against science by commit-
tee and against those pressing an empirical agenda on the Royal Society.
Her initial refusal to acknowledge the ancients and to learn the language
of science,25 and her systematic attacks on virtually all her contemporaries
could only have shocked her peers. Her mixing of literature (‘fancies’ and
poems) and philosophy and the self-admitted structural disorganization of
her early work could only prove equally problematic for her acceptance.26
Any attempt to extract a postmodern criticism of science from Caven-
dish’s work must ignore her staunch royalism and her consistent concern
for maintaining the old social order. Her works are extended arguments
for obedience to King, Country and Church. Even her husband’s desire she
calls “as powerful on me, as the powerfullest authority of states to particu-
lar persons” (1664, p. 297). Cavendish does not expound a strong skepti-
cism, defending instead rationalism (minus comprehensive knowledge of
自然) over a science of the senses.27 Her multiple mental worlds, touted
25. Here again the conferences of Renaudot prove interesting. Participants debated
whether natural science could be adequately described in the vulgar tongue, most of them
expressing a belief in Latin’s superiority.
26. In Philosophical Opinions Margaret complained that printer’s mistakes sometimes al-
tered her intended meaning in Philosophical Fancies. She also apologized for misplaced
chapters in the World’s Olio.
27. Cavendish’s rationalism is generalized here. The internal consistency of her episte-
mology within any given work, not to mention within her corpus, is difªcult to establish.
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科学观点
363
as representative of radical subjectivism, she forcibly subdued in the name
of unity and order. Her deconstruction of male-dominated science only at-
tempts to prevent the contagious spread of multiple perspectives. Caven-
dish saw scientiªc society fragmenting opinion rather than “colonizing
others’ minds” with any uniªed fact; and thus she took up pen, prose and
philosophy against. This endeavor added to her brief fame in her own life,
and has revived, among those seeking to identify her ideas with our own,
interest in her scholarship today.
The ºamboyant yet painfully shy Duchess of Newcastle desired little
more than to enter into the philosophical dialogues that circled closely
around her and to establish an intellectual legacy by which she would be
remembered. She tells her reader in her autobiographical memoir: “for I
am very ambitious, yet tis neither for Beauty, Wit, Titles, Wealth Or
力量, but as they are steps to raise me to Fames Tower” (Paper Bodies,
PP. 61–62). In both private letters and her published work the Duchess
admits that her fear of death is rather a fear of historical obscurity than
pain or suffering. Her attempts to establish an intellectual legacy by
forced entry into the community of natural scientists are consistent with
her admitted end. Perhaps paradoxically, her failing to obtain the recogni-
tion of her “Idea” in her own age has of late precipitated a small degree of
success in her goal to live “as Memory in Future Life” (1664, XC, CXLII).
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