Margaret Cavendish`s early atomism

Margaret Cavendish?s atomism is controversial. There is disagreement on whether she defended an authentic atomistic position in her first book, Poems and Fancies. Those who think she had been committed to atomism in that work, disagree on whether, when, and to what extent she later abandoned atomism. This paper aims to resolve these interpretative controversies. By invoking the differences in treatment of atoms and void in Cavendish?s later works, particularly in the two editions of Philosophical and Physical Opinions, it is argued that Cavendish had in fact initially defended atomism, that she later pivoted to a vitalist atomist position, and that she finally abandoned the latter view, and consequently atomism in general, by the time she published the second edition of Philosophical and Physical Opinions in 1663.