BIO
Cavendish’s commentary and critiques of natural philosophy dizzy the modern reader, but most notably she contributed to the rise of atomism and a critique of experimental philosophy. Her experiences during the English civil war, as a woman in a pretentious court, contribute to understanding the fundamental issues of her philosophy—order and life. As an avid virtuosi and member of elite Parisian society, William--Cavendish's husband-- introduced Cavendish to atomism after their marriage and inclusion in his small, salon-like group. Cavendish does not talk about her involvement in the small group, but she does mention a few of the philosophers she met; the conversation was lacking.[i] Most probably, she listened in, gleaning what she could, and then was later thoroughly tutored by both William and his brother Charles. One can imagine Cavendish learning the same way the Empress does in the Blazing-World. She asks question after question, listening and contemplating the answers of the very knowledgeable spirits.[ii]
What was the appeal of atomism’s revival? Anna Battegelli suggests for Cavendish that “Atomism helped to account for the political and psychological conflict that shaped her life by depicting a system in which stability of any kind—material, political, or emotional—was ultimately elusive.”[iii] Robert Kargon’s classic study on atomism suggests that “the causal relationship posited by atomism was close to their [natural philosophers’] experiences with gross bodies.”[iv] New experiences with machines required the foundations of reality to be mechanical in nature. There were many incarnations of the ancient’s atomism. In a general sense, atomism is a belief that the corporeal world is made of indivisible particles of matter. This definition does not do justice to the many alterations, alternatives, and theoretical varieties surrounding its revival, which was being discussed in informal groups, like the Cavendish circle.
Cavendish presents her worldview in “A World made by Atomes.” There is an obvious ordered-ness in Cavendish’s explanations, similar to the hierarchical order see desires in the monarchial government.[v] In a later poem, she shows both the constructive and destructive powers of atoms.
Thus Life and Death, and young and old,
Are, as the severall Atomes hold…
And Dispositions good, or ill,
Are as the severall Atomes still.
And every Passion which doth rise,
Is as the severall Atomes lies.
Thus Sicknesse, Health, and Peace, and War,
Are always as the severall Atomes are.[vi]
The chaos, disorder, disease, anger, and murderous passions framing Cavendish’s experiences during the war had a logical explanation. Was Cavendish the only one responding to a need for order? Atomism and its varieties were widely discussed in England and Paris, especially in the Cavendish circle, loosely including Hobbes, the brothers Cavendish, John Pell, Descartes, and Gassendi. Carolyn Merchant emphasizes, “Rational control over nature, society, and the self was achieved by redefining reality itself through the new machine metaphor.”[vii] Perhaps atomism gained notoriety as a theory of matter because it explained apparent disorder and systematized factious elements—an ontological belief appealing to historical characters embroiled chaotic and divisive war.
Examination of the vacuum[viii] and the problems of atomism magnify a particular point Cavendish stressed in her stories on society—division and factiousness drain life from the world. It also highlights her differences with other advocates of atomism. Her atomism was initially closest to the views of Gassendi and Hobbes.[ix] When she describes the vacuum, she described the void—the space between atoms or that which is non-atom. It is difficult to say whether Cavendish clearly understood the theories of vacuum and void or if she disregarded other philosophy—trying to create her own. Cavendish struggled to understand motion in Descartes plenist and corpuscular theory. Kargon highlights the most important difference in her philosophy from others.
And Dispositions good, or ill,
Are as the severall Atomes still.
And every Passion which doth rise,
Is as the severall Atomes lies.
Thus Sicknesse, Health, and Peace, and War,
Are always as the severall Atomes are.[vi]
The chaos, disorder, disease, anger, and murderous passions framing Cavendish’s experiences during the war had a logical explanation. Was Cavendish the only one responding to a need for order? Atomism and its varieties were widely discussed in England and Paris, especially in the Cavendish circle, loosely including Hobbes, the brothers Cavendish, John Pell, Descartes, and Gassendi. Carolyn Merchant emphasizes, “Rational control over nature, society, and the self was achieved by redefining reality itself through the new machine metaphor.”[vii] Perhaps atomism gained notoriety as a theory of matter because it explained apparent disorder and systematized factious elements—an ontological belief appealing to historical characters embroiled chaotic and divisive war.
Examination of the vacuum[viii] and the problems of atomism magnify a particular point Cavendish stressed in her stories on society—division and factiousness drain life from the world. It also highlights her differences with other advocates of atomism. Her atomism was initially closest to the views of Gassendi and Hobbes.[ix] When she describes the vacuum, she described the void—the space between atoms or that which is non-atom. It is difficult to say whether Cavendish clearly understood the theories of vacuum and void or if she disregarded other philosophy—trying to create her own. Cavendish struggled to understand motion in Descartes plenist and corpuscular theory. Kargon highlights the most important difference in her philosophy from others.
Lady Margaret did not fear to tread upon dangerous ground. The mere fact of her atomism was enough to cause concern in some circles; that she admitted that atoms, of themselves, could make a world was near heresy. She compounded her seeming apostasy by adhering to very unorthodox ideas about the soul and about atheism. Like the ancient atomists (and Hobbes), Margaret held that the soul is corporeal, albeit rare and pure.[x]
Philosophical Fancies and The Philosophical and Physical Opinions include two poems, “There is no Vacuity” and “Of Vacuum.” If all matter is “equall” or identical, then all matter would fit nicely together like nesting boxes, and no vacuum would exist. But if the building blocks of nature are different, they can never be joined together; and as Cavendish reasoned, a void must exist to allow matter to move. As Cavendish comments on the important philosophical debate, she presents both sides of the argument and concludes, “The Reader may take either Opinion.”[xi] Early in her philosophizing, she prefers the argument for the void, however she would ultimately abandon atomism. She could not reconcile the void with an ultra materialistic belief that Kargon describes above.
Philosophical Fancies and The Philosophical and Physical Opinions include two poems, “There is no Vacuity” and “Of Vacuum.” If all matter is “equall” or identical, then all matter would fit nicely together like nesting boxes, and no vacuum would exist. But if the building blocks of nature are different, they can never be joined together; and as Cavendish reasoned, a void must exist to allow matter to move. As Cavendish comments on the important philosophical debate, she presents both sides of the argument and concludes, “The Reader may take either Opinion.”[xi] Early in her philosophizing, she prefers the argument for the void, however she would ultimately abandon atomism. She could not reconcile the void with an ultra materialistic belief that Kargon describes above.
Like Hobbes, Cavendish would ultimately abandon atomism and accept a plenist perspective.[xii] Kargon writes of Hobbes’ change, “It is possible that Hobbes saw in the all-pervading fluid aether which he introduced in 1655 a single mechanical instrument which was very much simpler to apply than a complex of effluvial mechanisms.”[xiii] Because of this, and what Battigelli calls “democratic implications”, Cavendish would ultimately abandon atomism.[xiv] Cavendish condemns the view that all matter is made of identical, tiny particles. She likens these atoms to a “body of dust,” swirling about in the air and unable to make any shape or figure for very long. She is unable to imagine them, “which me thinks should make such uncertainties, such disproportioned figures, and confused creations, as there would be an infinite and eternal disorder.”[xv] Cavendish looked around her, and she saw an order to nature. Worms, trees, and humans exist, holding a form and function. She decides that if all atoms were the same then “every atom must be of a living substance, that is innate matter.” In this early piece, she is still working through how matter and motion are related. Nature is, she will argue, “matter, form, and motion, all these being as it were but one thing…The spirits of nature, which is the life of nature, and the several motions are the several actions of nature.”[xvi] These early speculations indicate a later strengthening of her animistic materialism, in which all is matter, and all matter is living.
Cavendish shared views with Henry More on the “vitality” of nature. What was “vital” or “living”? In More’s theory, Kargon shows that “his argument rested, in part, upon the incapability of self-motion by matter.”[xvii] God is ultimately the cause of motion in the universe, and the soul is an incorporeal and self-moving substance. Eileen O’Neill writes that Cavendish disagreed with this view. “In opposition to the views of Descartes, More, Glanvill, and Van Helmont, she maintains that there are neither incorporeal substances nor incorporeal qualities in nature (Observations, p. 137).”[xviii] Cavendish tries to be straightforward. Everything in nature was matter in motion. Therefore, motion was innate to matter. Much of her criticism of science stemmed from its use of incorporeal entities. Motion was incorporeal; and corporeal, as Cavendish understood it, meant a thing, a body, or a being that was made of matter. She could not accept that the two were separate. How could it be a thing or a body without being matter and without being in motion? Some philosophers used it to describe the mind; some used it to describe the soul. Cavendish would eventually make a stand. By 1668 Cavendish claims, “Some Learned Persons are of opinion, That there are Substances that are not Material Bodies. But how they can prove any sort of Substance to be no Body, I cannot tell…there cannot be any Substances in Nature, that are between Body, and no Body.”[xix]
Furthermore, life is important in her reasoning. If matter is the first part of her philosophy, motion is the second. “For Motion is the life and soul of Nature, and of all her parts…Wherefore those that allow a soul…in Nature and her parts, and yet call some parts inanimate of soul-less, do absolutely contradict themselves.”[xx] The mechanical philosophy established a metaphor for the universe; it implied a master “Watch-maker.” The relegation of motion and engineering to something or someone outside “nature” was, for Cavendish, absurd. As incomprehensible as incorporeal and immaterial was for Cavendish, she still claimed God was both.
Cavendish shared views with Henry More on the “vitality” of nature. What was “vital” or “living”? In More’s theory, Kargon shows that “his argument rested, in part, upon the incapability of self-motion by matter.”[xvii] God is ultimately the cause of motion in the universe, and the soul is an incorporeal and self-moving substance. Eileen O’Neill writes that Cavendish disagreed with this view. “In opposition to the views of Descartes, More, Glanvill, and Van Helmont, she maintains that there are neither incorporeal substances nor incorporeal qualities in nature (Observations, p. 137).”[xviii] Cavendish tries to be straightforward. Everything in nature was matter in motion. Therefore, motion was innate to matter. Much of her criticism of science stemmed from its use of incorporeal entities. Motion was incorporeal; and corporeal, as Cavendish understood it, meant a thing, a body, or a being that was made of matter. She could not accept that the two were separate. How could it be a thing or a body without being matter and without being in motion? Some philosophers used it to describe the mind; some used it to describe the soul. Cavendish would eventually make a stand. By 1668 Cavendish claims, “Some Learned Persons are of opinion, That there are Substances that are not Material Bodies. But how they can prove any sort of Substance to be no Body, I cannot tell…there cannot be any Substances in Nature, that are between Body, and no Body.”[xix]
Furthermore, life is important in her reasoning. If matter is the first part of her philosophy, motion is the second. “For Motion is the life and soul of Nature, and of all her parts…Wherefore those that allow a soul…in Nature and her parts, and yet call some parts inanimate of soul-less, do absolutely contradict themselves.”[xx] The mechanical philosophy established a metaphor for the universe; it implied a master “Watch-maker.” The relegation of motion and engineering to something or someone outside “nature” was, for Cavendish, absurd. As incomprehensible as incorporeal and immaterial was for Cavendish, she still claimed God was both.
So while natural philosophers hailed the mechanical metaphor—nature and its parts running like a machine or a watch—Cavendish lamented man’s militant dominance over nature and the loss of life. In “Hunting of the Hare,” Cavendish cries
Yet Man doth think himselfe so gentle, mild,
When he of Creatures is most cruell[y] wild.
And is so Proud, thinks onely he shall live,
That God a God-like Nature did him give.[xxi]
Within traditional gender and class ideologies, Cavendish’s empathy and caring for animals and nature would not be outside its limits.[xxii] Because humans cannot converse with animals, she argues that “Beasts may have, for all any Man knows, as strange and as fantastical Humours, Imaginations, and Opinions, as Men.”[xxiii] Cavendish implies the need for humanity’s humility in relation to nature; domination of nature had long been, and would continue to be, the relationship between man and the world. Although it might not have been outside ideologies, it was a worldview in stark contrast with the dominant one. Keith Thomas argues “The early modern period had thus generated feelings which would make it increasingly hard for men to come to terms with the uncompromising methods by which the dominance of their species had been secured.”[xxiv] A paradox: on one hand, discussion of the rationality of women, plants, and animals heightened awareness and sympathetic feelings towards all creatures; and on the other, the growing mechanical view of nature reinforced medieval anthropocentric ideals. Natural philosophy made nature simple and therefore knowable, elevating humans to an elite position as the student, knower, and systematizer of nature.
Cavendish’s rejection of philosophies that included immaterial substances responded to an acute need for a living nature. Sarasohn shows how “she developed a natural philosophy that could not be restrained by either method or authority, repudiating both the old and new system of thought.”[xxv] All of Cavendish’s male counterparts responded to their society and community; she was no different. She learned from and replied to philosophers, as well as attacking traditional systems that limited her right to rationality. This system was one that was subversive to those “of the gown”—the gowns that women wear. Perhaps in response to the additional restricting social rules, Cavendish’s natural philosophy was edgier and more daring.
[i] Cavendish, “An Epilogue to my Philosophical Opinions,” The Philosophical and Physical Opinions. Cavendish mentions both Hobbes and Descartes, but stresses that there was little conversation between them. As to reading their works, other philosophers, or the ancients, “my own foolish fancies do so imploy my time, as they will not give me leave to read their books.”
[ii] Margaret Cavendish, The Description of a New World, Called The Blazing-World (London: 1668), 65.
[iii] Anna Battigelli, Margaret Cavendish and the Exiles of the Mind (Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1998), 39. Carolyn Merchant also argues for this—suggesting that many philosophers desired this ordered universe after the chaos within the political realm. See below.
[iv] Robert Kargon, Atomism in England from Hariot to Newton (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966), 3.
[v] Cavendish, Poems and Fancies, 5.
[vi] Cavendish, Poems and Fancies, 16.
[vii] Merchant, 192-3.
[viii] It seems that Cavendish did not distinguish between “vacuum” and “void”; whether this is because she understood the two to be synonymous, we can little guess. Again, the discussion of atomism will be further clarified later.
[ix] Kargon explains that both men had a surprisingly similar atomism. The both relied heavily on matter or indivisible atoms, and motion as mechanic-physical “impact” or “collision” laws in the void. The difference: “Whereas by 1655 Hobbes turned to explanations utilizing the medium as mechanism, Gassend relied upon the action of effluvia. Electrical and magnetic attraction, for instance, are caused by exhalations from the attracting bodies of appropriate streams of small corpuscles” (67). She was split on the decision about whether a void existed in nature. Cavendish was similar to Hobbes in his opposition to Gassendi on the nature of the soul. “[God] bestows upon man, Gassend held in opposition to both Epicurus and Hobbes, an immaterial and immaterial soul” (68).
[x] Kargon, 75.
[xi] Margaret Cavendish, Philosophicall Fancies (London: Tho. Roycroft for J. Martin and J. Allestrye, 1653), 8-9.
[xii] A plenum is a space, or in this case a universe, that is completely fully of matter; the void no longer exists. Both Hobbes and Descartes held plenist views.
[xiii] Kargon, 58.
[xiv] Battigelli, 60.
[xv] Cavendish, “A Condemning Treatise of Atomes,” The Philosophical and Physical Opinions.
[xvi] Cavendish, “The Text to my Natural Sermon,” The Philosophical and Physical Opinions.
[xvii] Kagon, 83.
[xviii] Eileen O’Neil, ed., “Introduction” to Observations upon Experimental Philosophy, by Margaret Cavendish (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), xxiii.
[xix] Cavendish, Grounds of Natural Philosophy, 1. Generally speaking, substance was broken down into corporeal and incorporeal parts, and the corporeal was then broken down further into material or physical parts. Cavendish simply does not believe in corporeal entities—a substance that would be between body and no body. How could there be an immaterial corporeal substance?
[xx] Margaret Cavendish, Observations Upon Experimental Philosophy. To which is added, The Description of a New Blazing World (London: A. Maxwell, 1666), 47.
[xxi] Cavendish, Poems and Fancies, 112.
[xxii] Keith Thomas, Man and the Natural World: Changing Attitudes in England 1500-1800 (London: Penguin Books, 1983), 170.
[xxiii] Cavendish, The Worlds Olio, 140.
[xxiv] Keith Thomas, 302.
[xxv] Sarasohn, 302.
LINKS
Margaret Cavendish - Wikipedia
Margaret Cavendish - Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Women in Science - Encyclopædia Britannica
Luminarium: Anthology of English Literature -- Margaret Cavendish
The Margaret Cavendish Society
Emory Women Writers Resource Project -- Margaret Cavendish
Link to a University of Houston podcast -- Margaret Cavendish
Yet Man doth think himselfe so gentle, mild,
When he of Creatures is most cruell[y] wild.
And is so Proud, thinks onely he shall live,
That God a God-like Nature did him give.[xxi]
Within traditional gender and class ideologies, Cavendish’s empathy and caring for animals and nature would not be outside its limits.[xxii] Because humans cannot converse with animals, she argues that “Beasts may have, for all any Man knows, as strange and as fantastical Humours, Imaginations, and Opinions, as Men.”[xxiii] Cavendish implies the need for humanity’s humility in relation to nature; domination of nature had long been, and would continue to be, the relationship between man and the world. Although it might not have been outside ideologies, it was a worldview in stark contrast with the dominant one. Keith Thomas argues “The early modern period had thus generated feelings which would make it increasingly hard for men to come to terms with the uncompromising methods by which the dominance of their species had been secured.”[xxiv] A paradox: on one hand, discussion of the rationality of women, plants, and animals heightened awareness and sympathetic feelings towards all creatures; and on the other, the growing mechanical view of nature reinforced medieval anthropocentric ideals. Natural philosophy made nature simple and therefore knowable, elevating humans to an elite position as the student, knower, and systematizer of nature.
Cavendish’s rejection of philosophies that included immaterial substances responded to an acute need for a living nature. Sarasohn shows how “she developed a natural philosophy that could not be restrained by either method or authority, repudiating both the old and new system of thought.”[xxv] All of Cavendish’s male counterparts responded to their society and community; she was no different. She learned from and replied to philosophers, as well as attacking traditional systems that limited her right to rationality. This system was one that was subversive to those “of the gown”—the gowns that women wear. Perhaps in response to the additional restricting social rules, Cavendish’s natural philosophy was edgier and more daring.
[i] Cavendish, “An Epilogue to my Philosophical Opinions,” The Philosophical and Physical Opinions. Cavendish mentions both Hobbes and Descartes, but stresses that there was little conversation between them. As to reading their works, other philosophers, or the ancients, “my own foolish fancies do so imploy my time, as they will not give me leave to read their books.”
[ii] Margaret Cavendish, The Description of a New World, Called The Blazing-World (London: 1668), 65.
[iii] Anna Battigelli, Margaret Cavendish and the Exiles of the Mind (Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1998), 39. Carolyn Merchant also argues for this—suggesting that many philosophers desired this ordered universe after the chaos within the political realm. See below.
[iv] Robert Kargon, Atomism in England from Hariot to Newton (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966), 3.
[v] Cavendish, Poems and Fancies, 5.
[vi] Cavendish, Poems and Fancies, 16.
[vii] Merchant, 192-3.
[viii] It seems that Cavendish did not distinguish between “vacuum” and “void”; whether this is because she understood the two to be synonymous, we can little guess. Again, the discussion of atomism will be further clarified later.
[ix] Kargon explains that both men had a surprisingly similar atomism. The both relied heavily on matter or indivisible atoms, and motion as mechanic-physical “impact” or “collision” laws in the void. The difference: “Whereas by 1655 Hobbes turned to explanations utilizing the medium as mechanism, Gassend relied upon the action of effluvia. Electrical and magnetic attraction, for instance, are caused by exhalations from the attracting bodies of appropriate streams of small corpuscles” (67). She was split on the decision about whether a void existed in nature. Cavendish was similar to Hobbes in his opposition to Gassendi on the nature of the soul. “[God] bestows upon man, Gassend held in opposition to both Epicurus and Hobbes, an immaterial and immaterial soul” (68).
[x] Kargon, 75.
[xi] Margaret Cavendish, Philosophicall Fancies (London: Tho. Roycroft for J. Martin and J. Allestrye, 1653), 8-9.
[xii] A plenum is a space, or in this case a universe, that is completely fully of matter; the void no longer exists. Both Hobbes and Descartes held plenist views.
[xiii] Kargon, 58.
[xiv] Battigelli, 60.
[xv] Cavendish, “A Condemning Treatise of Atomes,” The Philosophical and Physical Opinions.
[xvi] Cavendish, “The Text to my Natural Sermon,” The Philosophical and Physical Opinions.
[xvii] Kagon, 83.
[xviii] Eileen O’Neil, ed., “Introduction” to Observations upon Experimental Philosophy, by Margaret Cavendish (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), xxiii.
[xix] Cavendish, Grounds of Natural Philosophy, 1. Generally speaking, substance was broken down into corporeal and incorporeal parts, and the corporeal was then broken down further into material or physical parts. Cavendish simply does not believe in corporeal entities—a substance that would be between body and no body. How could there be an immaterial corporeal substance?
[xx] Margaret Cavendish, Observations Upon Experimental Philosophy. To which is added, The Description of a New Blazing World (London: A. Maxwell, 1666), 47.
[xxi] Cavendish, Poems and Fancies, 112.
[xxii] Keith Thomas, Man and the Natural World: Changing Attitudes in England 1500-1800 (London: Penguin Books, 1983), 170.
[xxiii] Cavendish, The Worlds Olio, 140.
[xxiv] Keith Thomas, 302.
[xxv] Sarasohn, 302.
LINKS
Margaret Cavendish - Wikipedia
Margaret Cavendish - Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Women in Science - Encyclopædia Britannica
Luminarium: Anthology of English Literature -- Margaret Cavendish
The Margaret Cavendish Society
Emory Women Writers Resource Project -- Margaret Cavendish
Link to a University of Houston podcast -- Margaret Cavendish
