ABSTRACT
Cavendish’s theories can be best understood in relation to seventeenth-century scientific conceptions of the world. Historian Hugh Kearney claims that early modem science can be loosely organized into three main scientific traditions, the scholastic, magic and mechanic sciences, all of which can be defined by their approach to nature. Mechanical philosophy, which eventually evolved into modem science, used the metaphor of a machine to describe the natural world; the magic or hermetic tradition, which included astronomy and chemistry, understood nature as a piece of artwork or music to be mastered by the magician; and scholastic science, which was taught in universities, used analogies of organisms to depict nature. Although all three sciences had different outlooks upon the world and often contradicted each other, all maintained a view of nature that held gendered implications.
