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Margaret Cavendish

Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, was an English philosopher, poet and writer who published under her own name at a time when few women…

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On the Coordinates: 1.9 Laws of Nature

Also known as Margaret Lucas Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle

1623 – 1673 · Colchester, Paris, Antwerp, Welbeck (Nottinghamshire), England

Traditions: Modern European

Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, was an English philosopher, poet and writer who published under her own name at a time when few women did. In exile in Paris and Antwerp during the English Civil War she came into contact with Hobbes, Descartes and Gassendi's circles. She developed a natural philosophy in which all matter is self-moving and perceptive, in degrees, and criticised the mechanism and experimental programme of the early Royal Society.

Key ideas

  • All of nature is material, but matter is not inert: it moves itself and perceives.
  • Matter comes in degrees, from inanimate to sensitive to rational matter, intermixed throughout nature.
  • Mechanical explanation by external pushes cannot account for order, perception or life.
  • Microscopes and experiments can distort appearances; reason must judge what observation reports.

Major works

  • Philosophical and Physical Opinions (1655)
  • Philosophical Letters (1664)
  • Observations upon Experimental Philosophy (1666)
  • The Blazing World (1666)

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In the Coordinates

The questions of philosophy where Margaret Cavendish takes a place, from The Coordinates of Thought.