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  • The Well-Ordered Universe: The Philosophy of Margaret Cavendish by Deborah Boyle
  • Brandie R. Siegfried (bio)
The Well-Ordered Universe: The Philosophy of Margaret Cavendish. Deborah Boyle. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018. x + 273 pp. $74. ISBN 978-0-19-023480-5.

As the title indicates, Deborah Boyle's The Well-Ordered Universe makes a strong case against those who continue to lace philosopher Margaret Cavendish into the straightjacket proffered early in the twentieth century by literary critic and author Virginia Woolf, who characterizes her as "the crazy Duchess" (The Common Reader [Harcourt, 1925; rpt. 1953], 77). Much of the scholarship on Cavendish in the last thirty years has done similar rescue work: while early recuperations of the duchess tended to celebrate her quirkiness, creativity, and penchant for parody, more recent treatments of Cavendish's philosophy have stressed the systematic development of ideas across the span of her oeuvre, demarcating ground shared with other philosophers (her contemporaries as well as the ancients) and mapping the new intellectual territory that was, in fact, properly Cavendish's. For instance, David Cunning's recent book, Cavendish (Routledge, 2016), traces in detail the influence of the seventeenth-century Stoic revival on Cavendish's thought, while also carefully sketching the new ends to which particular aspects of stoicism were put in her theories of human society within the overarching framework of nature. Similarly, Lisa Walters's Margaret Cavendish: Gender, Science, and Politics (Cambridge, 2014) and Lisa T. Sarasohn's The Natural Philosophy of Margaret Cavendish: Reason and Fancy during the Scientific Revolution (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010) describe the careful thought and systematic development of ideas spanning Cavendish's body of work. Boyle's book continues this welcome trend. [End Page 266]

As the title suggests, chapters of The Well Ordered Universe address Cavendish's understanding of order and regularities in nature, and follow her early study of atomism and eventual conclusions regarding its failures. Additional chapters trace Cavendish's development of a vital-materialist model for explaining regularity; her theory regarding the coherence and self-knowledge of individual creatures; and her thoughts on the peculiar role of the human desire for fame. Further chapters assert Cavendish's ideas on the maintenance of peace and order in society; her embrace of strict gender roles as a fundamental ordering principle in nature; her thoughts on human relationships with the environment (Boyle here gives special attention to the use of other animals by humans); and the health and order of the human body. By starting with a tight focus on Cavendish's theory of the microcosmic, then panning back to consider her theories regarding macrocosmic relations before tightening the focus once again on a particular microcosm—the human body—Boyle nicely demonstrates how Cavendish's natural philosophy does, in fact, accommodate a variety of questions about the natural world generally, and the world of human relations more particularly.

Several features recommend the book. As already mentioned, Boyle mounts a vigorous defense of Cavendish as a systematic, careful thinker whose philosophy evolved in sophisticated and interesting ways. Additionally, because Boyle frequently directly engages several major scholars in Cavendish studies, the book proffers an abridged compilation of what has been written on the topics treated in each of the nine chapters. Of special interest to those exploring overlaps in the history of political philosophy and theories of the natural world, Boyle offers a strong reading of Cavendish as a proponent of libertarian freedom, and more on this topic from Boyle would certainly be welcome—indeed, several of the chapters could easily become independent monographs in their own right. On the particular question of how Cavendish reconciles a form of libertarian freedom with certain Stoic tendencies in her thought, an extended analysis might include an examination of theories of freedom available before Cavendish was writing, as well as those that emerged shortly after her death, with examples of how and why so many thinkers were at pains to make similar reconciliations. While much has been done with Cavendish in relation to Thomas Hobbes's political thought—and Boyle does engage with the scholarship—one of the benefits of The Well Ordered Universe is its suggestion that Cavendish...

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