Margaret Cavendish: Observations upon Experimental Philosophy Book

Imagine you are in a house with Descartes. There are philosophical and scientific discussions going on. But you are banned, silenced from having thoughts, from asking questions, from even caring about such issues. You are not even allowed in the room. You are told that all you can talk about is the equivalent of what is in 17 magazine. Even when Margaret's father died when she was 2, her mother did not allow her an education. It would be hard not to be pissed off. To read a woman's writing from this period (not only was writing not encouraged, but thinking thoughts was not encouraged or very much allowed) is exceptional, if not nearly impossible. Margaret would compose letters to Descartes, Hobbes, and others, but they were not sent. She had to discourse through letters with herself. Her first letter "to Descartes" is about motion. This is after she had written many poems more or less as a commentary on Lucretius.

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