Observations upon Experimental Philosophy

Introduction

Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, published this treatise in 1666, a year after Robert Hooke’s Micrographia had made the microscope famous. She argues that lenses distort what they show and that experiments cannot replace reasoned reflection on nature. Against the mechanical philosophy of Descartes and Hobbes she sets her own organic materialism: all matter is self-moving and in some degree perceptive and rational, so that nature forms one living, self-knowing whole. In 1667 she became the first woman to attend a meeting of the Royal Society. Long dismissed as eccentric, the book is now studied as a contribution to early modern natural philosophy.

Connections

Criticizes

• Meditations on First Philosophy1641 · René Descartes
• Leviathan1651 · Thomas Hobbes

More works by Margaret Cavendish

• 1666The Blazing World