Editor's Preface xxix 



two sorts of reasoning ', he says ; ' those that the mind 

 advanceth from its inbred store, such are all metaphysical 

 contemplations ; and those natural researches which are 

 raised from experiment and the objects of sense. Now, what 

 I have said about these matters is to tie down the mind in 

 physical things to consider nature as it is, to lay a foundation 

 in sensible collections, and from thence to proceed to general 

 propositions and discourses. So that my aim is that we may 

 arise according to the order of nature, from the exercise of 

 our senses to that of our reason ; which indeed is most noble 

 and most perfect when it concludes aright, but not so when 

 it is mistaken ; and that it may so conclude and arrive to 

 that perfection it must begin in sense ; and the more ex- 

 periments our reasons have to work on, by so much they are 

 the more likely to be certain in their conclusions, and conse- 

 quently more perfect in their actings '. Whilst the Ro3 T al 

 Society and all those to whom the progress of physical science 

 in England during the latter half of the seventeenth century 

 was due were eagerly pursuing the experimental method, 

 the Duchess continued to spin her ' metaphysical cogitations ' 

 like a spider, as she says, from her own brain. 1 



It is not surprising that her husband praised them, for he 

 held that nobody knew or could know the cause of anything, 

 all were but guessers, and so his wife's opinions were as likely 

 to be correct as any one else's. But it is rather a shock to find 

 learned bodies and learned men lavishing unmeasured praise 

 upon them. Dr. Walter Charlton gravely writes to her, 

 bidding her not be discouraged, if her philosophy have not 

 the fate to be publicly read in all the Universities of Europe, 

 and discusses the question whether the jealousy of philosophical 

 teachers, the dislike of dogmatism which had recently sprang 

 up in England, or the influence of the opposing philosophy 

 of Aquinas, was the cause of this delay 2 . Some such reward 

 of her labours the Duchess seems to have expected, for she 



1 In addition to these works the Duchess published the following : 



(i.) Philosophical Letters, or Modest Reflections upon some Opinions in Natural Philo~ 

 sophy maintained by several learn-ed authors of tlte age. London, 1664, folio. 



(2.) Observations upon Experimental Philosophy, to which is added the Description of 

 a New World. London, 1666, folio ; second edition, 1668. 



(3.) Grounds of Natural Philosophy. London, 1668, folio. This is a second edition, 

 much altered, of Philosophical and Physical Opinions. 



2 Letters and Poems in Honour of the incomparable Princess, Margaret, Duchess of 

 Newcastle, written by several persons of honour and learning, 1676, p. in, and The 

 Bagford Ballads, ii, 884. 



