ABSTRACT
In her recently published study, The Natural Philosophy of Margaret Cavendish, Lisa Sarasohn has called the attention of scholars working on Cavendish's philosophy of nature to the evolution of her ideas over time-from the Epicurean atomism of Poems and Fancies to what Sarasohn calls the 'holistic materialism' of her later writings. The Restoration was a period of heightened sensitivity to religious enthusiasm and to 'Atheism'. Although on one level Cavendish's Philosophical Letters can be viewed as a simple elaboration and reiteration of her philosophical system. As Susan James has argued, one fruitful way in which to contextualize Cavendish's philosophy is to see it as a response to some limitations of mechanism which troubled her and many of her contemporaries. Hobbes's system-which relies on motion imparted from outside the body-is necessarily a mechanical theory based on collision, percussion, and imparted motion.
