The Social and Intellectual World of Early Modern Science

Women largely stood outside the formal institutions of the Scientific Revolution even as some produced substantial work within its intellectual currents. Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle (1623-1673), wrote extensively on natural philosophy, publishing works such as Observations upon Experimental Philosophy (1666) that criticized the mechanical philosophy's claims and defended a more vitalist view of matter; in 1667 she became the first woman to attend a meeting of the Royal Society, though only as an invited observer, since women were not admitted as fellows for centuries afterward. Other notable women include Anne Conway, whose philosophical writings influenced Leibniz, the German naturalist and scientific illustrator Maria Sibylla Merian, who documented insect metamorphosis in exacting detail, and Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia, whose searching philosophical correspondence with Descartes pushed him to refine his account of mind-body interaction.