The Balance: Between Chemistry and Politics
Author(s): Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent
Source: The Eighteenth Century , FALL 1992, Vol. 33, No. 3 (FALL 1992), pp. 217-237
Published by: University of Pennsylvania Press
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41447871
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The Eighteenth Century, vol. 33, no. 3, 1992
THE BALANCE: BETWEEN CHEMISTRY AND POLITICS
Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent
It has often been said that Lavoisier revolutionized chemistry
with his use of the balance. Indeed, this view is rooted in
Lavoisier's own interpretation of the famous series of calcination
experiments he performed in 1772. Lavoisier recorded that it was
his observation of the increasing weight of metals during calcination that gave rise to his first doubts regarding the role of phlogiston in combustion and led him to envision the possibility of "une
révolution en physique et en chimie" by February 1773.1 But
precisely how are we to conceive of an instrument as the motor of
scientific change? According to Jean-Baptiste Dumas' canonical
version of the chemical revolution, the balance served as
Lavoisier's most glorious weapon in his unrelenting battle against
error.
La balance est donc dès le premier essai, entre les mains de Lavoisi
permettez-moi cette expression, un réactif fidèle, dont il a
constant. . . . Dès 1772, Lavoisier possédait l'idée fondamentale su
ses travaux se sont appuyés et ... il y a été conduit par cet emploi de
lui seul connaissait alors, car avant Lavoisier les chimistes ignoraient
[Since his first trials, therefore, the balance in Lavoisier's hands was
you will allow me this expression - a trusty reagent to which Lavois
turned. . . . Since 1772, Lavoisier possessed the fundamental idea
all his subsequent work and ... he was directed by this use of the
only to him, because before Lavoisier chemists were unaware of the ar
Subsequent generations of historians have revised
what naive picture. On one hand, it is widely rec
Lavoisier was not the first chemist to employ gravim
work. On the other hand, a narrow focus on the use o
has been increasingly replaced by a more general app
the role of quantification in chemistry, as represe
introduction of a broad range of experimental mea
practice.3
What role did the balance really play in Lavoisier's work? Was it
simply a symbol of the quantitative method or an actual instrument
of investigation? If the latter, did it serve the purpose of explora217
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218
THE
tion,
EIGHTEENTH
CENTURY
demonstration,
leg
crete terms, how did balan
of measuring bodies that p
cal reaction manage to ti
Lavoisier's views and away
This question concerns t
theory, but also goes we
implicate
the
symbolizes
exalted
ly
social
justice
values
pertinent,
of
a
dimen
and
the
link
eq
revol
has
chemical practices and the
during his daily life as a f
sued a double career as chemist and Farmer General or tax
collector.5 Whatever the importance of Lavoisier's scientific wo
we should never forget that it was a leisure activity, dependen
the revenues he derived from his work in the General Farm.
As his wife recorded, Lavoisier managed to combine these two
activities only because he kept to an inflexible schedule: scientific
work from 6-8 a.m.; administrative or academic functions during
the day; further scientific work from 7-10 p.m.; and one day per
week consecrated solely to chemistry. Lavoisier learned also to
harmonize the interests of his two pursuits during his daily routine.
When he travelled to collect taxes in some provincial town, he
communicated with the local academy. On one hand, he collected
money while performing his duties as a functionary. On the other,
he delivered scientific information while presenting himself as a
chemist.
After 1775, when he became commissioner of the gunpowder
Registry and moved into the Arsenal, Lavoisier balanced his inter-
ests with even greater success. Using his personal fortune, he
equipped the Arsenal's basement with a chemistry laboratory
where he pursued his research and received academic colleagues
and collaborators on a weekly basis. Chemist and financier: not
two parallel lives, but two tightly intertwined activities that
Lavoisier pursued in one, singularly productive life. It is hardly
surprising that both somehow reflected the other.
Is this biographical information enough to "explain" the importance of gravimétries in Lavoisier's chemistry? The similarity of
accounting methods used in each of his major pursuits seemed so
evident that historians of science, little inclined to examine social
influences, quickly swept the argument away with a stroke of the
pen by reminding their readers that others before Lavoisier had
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BENSAUDE-VINCENT- THE BALANCE 219
brought gravimetry to chemistry.6
proach the question differently
Lavoisier's published memoirs. Fo
careers; he also produced an econ
sembled in the sixth volume of his collected works.
Far from being a unique case, the cohabitation of economics
and chemistry was actually quite common in the eighteenth cen-
tury.7 It is in the general context of economic reflections and
debates in pre-revolutionary France that I will reconsider the
question of what sort of relation existed between Lavoisier's scientific and administrative activities. I will show that presenting the
balance as symbol of the chemical revolution is justified so long as
we consider it not only as an instrument of the laboratory, but also
as an abstract concept that brings together diverse aspects of
Lavoisier's oeuvre.
1. A Precision Instrument
Contrary to what Dumas claims, chemists prior to Lavoisier did
not completely ignore the art of weighing. The balance took its
place alongside furnaces, retorts, and alembics as familiar equipment in seventeenth-century chemistry laboratories.8 Balances
were used for two types of work. First, they were employed by
apothecaries who had no need for a high degree of precision. The
majority of their recipes gave only approximate proportions: "mix
one part of this product with four parts of that . . . add a little of
this or that." Second, assayers who were charged with testing the
gold and silver content in coins needed accurate balances to carry
out their examinations of noble metals.9
As long as chemical theory remained essentially qualitative,
chemists did not accord the balance a privileged status and there
was no concerted program to extend its domain of application to
all chemically active and derivative substances. Precise balances
were not needed so long as chemical practice consisted mainly in
preparing mixts. However, given developments in mining and
metallurgy during the eighteenth century, especially in Sweden
and Germany, the practice of quantitative analysis was increasingly
required and employed. The assayer's coup d'oeil - his expertly
trained glance - may have sufficed to establish the amount of
familiar metals, such as iron, in a mineral. But for new metals such
as cobalt and nickel, it was necessary to have recourse to theory
and analytical techniques that employed an accurate balance.
During the years 1760-70, the practice of quantitative analysis,
which developed first in mineralogy, was extended to other
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220
THE
EIGHTEENTH
CENTURY
domains, such as the study
All the familiar operations
posing waters to collecting,
airs
-
helped
make
the
bal
laboratory, along with the
Black is thus sometimes con
methods
in
chemistry.
Si
exploratory instrument. Th
"fixed air," thanks to the lo
magnesia alba.10 It is thus d
given to measurement and
the influence of experiment
Cavendish and Lavoisier mobilized the know-how of instrument
makers to construct balances that were adapted to their specific
research programs. J. Harrison made instruments for Cavendish
that rivaled those of the Parisian instrument makers Mégnié and
Fortin, who worked for Lavoisier. Lavoisier's correspondence
gives an indication of the importance of the orders he placed with
these two instrument makers and the substantial sums he invested
in the apparatus he purchased. It reveals also that Mégnié and
Fortin, in working so closely with Lavoisier and his collaborators,
played a significant role in the chemical revolution. Thanks to the
ingenuity of artisans, Cavendish and Lavoisier worked with newly
designed balances in which the long beam was alloyed with
precision. The flail now sat on a table leg rather than being
suspended. The blade was detached from the balance's body and
given a new shape. In place of a rounded shape, it was formed to
look like a triangle-faced prism. Finally, a fixed magnifying glass
was positioned so that the operator could read the position of the
balance's needle on a calibrated dial with ease. One balance, built
for Lavoisier by Mégnié and on exhibit at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers, is sensible to five milligrams for weights
up to 600 grams. Another constructed by Fortin in 1788 could
handle a weight of ten kilograms with a precision of twenty-five
milligrams.12
2. The Balance as Rhetorical Argument
Can these technical performances themselves account for the
revolutionary function accorded Lavoisier's balance? Some commentators have emphasized that establishing the increased weight
of calcined metals did not at all require a very exact balance.
Anders Lundgren maintains that "quantitative facts alone did not
kill the phlogiston theory. Increased accuracy of measurements
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BENSAUDE-VINCENT- THE BALANCE 221
certainly played no important part
precise measures co-existed quite
such as Bergman, Cavendish, and Pr
not yet have such a sophisticated
In any event, it was not his balance
weight of calcined metals; the anom
some time. And, since the gravimet
selectively, it cannot be maintained
that condemned phlogiston as a
ample, Lavoisier classed light and
despite their imponderability. In
that defeated Stahlian chemistry.14
Lundgren goes further to sugg
Lavoisier's balances actually exceede
tal arguments. What mattered in
maintains, was not instrumental pr
ment in itself - the role accorde
balance was thus more rhetorical tha
of the balance can be considered rhetorical in at least two different
ways: first, the strong emphasis that Lavoisier placed on the
balance's 'judgment" in his memoirs and second, the balance's
role as metonymy for metrics in general. The balance became a
kind of fetish.
John McEvoy relates Lavoisier's use of the balance to Condillac's
philosophy, to which Lavoisier made explicit reference and which
took calculus and algebra as the model for all reasoning.15 McEvoy
shows that both Priestley and Lavoisier took measurements; at one
point, Priestley invoked gravimetric evidence against the supposed
existence of caloric. But McEvoy points also to the different
philosophical postulates that directed Priestley's and Lavoisier's
common use of the balance. For Priestley the balance's importance
was tied to his distrust for theory, while for Lavoisier it fit into a
framework in which all chemical reactions were bounded by the
principle of weight conservation. Thus the scientific controversy
can be interpreted as a philosophical debate between Priestley the
empiricist who trusted only the facts and Lavoisier the theoretician
who sought to mathematize experimental practice.
Interpretations such as Lundgren's and McEvoy's challenge the
chemical revolution's historiography much as Koyré's Etudes
GaliUennes opposed traditional positivism,16 minimizing the role of
experiment as they examine an underlying philosophy. But in
shifting the emphasis from one side of the historiographical
spectrum to the other, we risk losing sight of the meaning of
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222
THE
EIGHTEENTH
experimental
CENTURY
practices.
Ev
ticity of all of Lavoisier's pu
and why he proceeded with
measurement. In his first m
as well as in his memoirs on calcination it is evident that what
mattered was less the precision of his balances than the repeated
gesture of his experimental operation with weights. Lavoisier
weighed both before and after an experiment. He weighed every
apparatus, every substance separately, and everything together.
And he constructed numerical tables that were often printed in
double notation, one using traditional fractions of ounces, gros,
and grains, the other using the decimal system which Lavoisier
sought to have widely adopted. Far from being an imaginary
figment, such work involving meticulous and repetitive weighing
was long, exacting, and burdensome. It required instruments that
were so costly and difficult to use that Lavoisier confessed in his
memoir "Sur la calcination de l'étain" that he lacked the strength
to continue this genre of experiment.17 Of course, as F. L. Holmes
has underscored by examining some of Lavoisier's laboratory
registers, Lavoisier was repeatedly unable to obtain the same
figures and had to rest content in his published memoirs with
approximate values. But as Holmes suggests, Lavoisier's success
lay precisely in his relying on the level of precision necessary to his
argument.18 Far from manifesting an obsession for absolute
precision, he relativized that exigency as a function of his research
goals.
If one wants to speak of the balance's rhetorical deployment, it
must be in the sense that it became a privileged instrument for
Lavoisier, the instrument of persuasion in an agonistic field.19 The
balance had to tilt the faith of chemists in favor of a certain
interpretation. It had to relieve all doubt and eliminate alternative
interpretations. This objective could be obtained only with the
method of assessment that Lavoisier employed. The balance did
not serve to identify a substance in itself by assigning a charac-
teristic weight, as it would do in the nineteenth century. It estab-
lished relative values and reaction appraisals. In the act of
weighing, Lavoisier sought to create an experimental space that
was entirely under the experimenter's control. Once balanced
with weights on Lavoisier's scale, substances were transformed
from objects of nature to objects of science. The balance divested
substances of their natural history. Their geographical and
geological origins, their circumstances of production made little
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BENSAUDE-VINCENT- THE BALANCE 223
difference. They were transforme
commensurable by a system of sta
In this sense it is true that many
reported at public meetings of t
idealized. Not that they were nev
these chemical transformations
with an idealized and simplified
On some occasions, Lavoisier seem
of his rare attempts to describe a r
for example, he underlined what
pondéral assessments. It was in the
métaux dans les acides,"20 in which
the dissolution of a metal (mercu
actually a case of calcination the w
bined with the vital air contained in the acid. Lavoisier
demonstrated this by weighing before and after the reactio
place and noting the gain of weight on the side of t
precipitate of mercury and the loss of weight on the side of
acid. He repeated the same series of operations with iron
was his habit, concluded from his pondéral assessment t
proof was complete. But he immediately commented th
dissolution of metals involves a large number of forces t
bound to complicate the process greatly and render the s
to the problem extremely difficult. He noted that he should
inserted the presence of heat in his formula, for example
alors on aurait une formule trop compliquée, et ce serait
duire dans la chimie une géométrie trop recherchée, do
n'est point encore susceptible." The more one unders
chemistry, however, the more greatly would one come
preciate the actual complexity of seemingly simple results.
to say that calculations of weight served, above all, a heuristi
They facilitated the formulation of hypotheses without exh
reality.
3. An Abstract Material Object
The act of placing nature on a balance presupposes the famous
principle often attributed to Lavoisier, "rien ne se créef rien ne se perd,"
In fact, it was not he who invented the expression; it can be found
as far back as in the atomism of antiquity, clearly expressed as an
axiomatic principle by Epicurus and Lucretius.22 This conservation principle operated equally in the mechanical philosophy of
seventeenth-century figures such as Mariotte, Boyle, and Pascal, as
well as in the chemistry of pre-Lavoisiens such as Macquer. Why
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224
THE
EIGHTEENTH
CENTURY
should we accord Lavoisier p
of the common store of eigh
notion that was so evident a
himself used the principle i
nearly twenty years before
élémentaire de chimie of 17
formulated
it
"décomposition
Lavoisier
in
passing
des
wrote
oxydes
that
to
v
un
nary as the transformation
gas, it is necessary:
d'abord bien connaître l'analyse et l
les produits de la fermentation; ca
opérations de l'art, ni dans celle de
dans toute opération, il y a une égal
que
la
qualité
changements,
faire
des
égalité
retire
et
la
des
des
p
modifications.
quantité
C
expériences
ou
par
équation
en
chimie:
entre
les
on
e
princi
l'analyse.23
[. . . first to be familiar with the a
ferment, and the products of their
crée , neither in art nor in nature
operations an equal amount of matte
quality and quantity of principles is
place. It is upon this belief that th
founded. One must always assume
principles of bodies that one examin
It
is
clear
from
this
passage
demonstrate the principle
postulate, almost as comm
claiming operational status
en chimie"
had served
and
change.
material
left
that obliged him
as the very cond
the
For
Lavoisier
transformations,
reactional
space.
a
A
the principle simultaneously
and of elements in chemical
a gravimetric criterion, not
on a pondéral assessment, b
tional products. The balan
control and a vehicle of ex
The heuristic virtues of L
should
not
blind
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us
to
its
lim
BENSAUDE-VINCENT- THE BALANCE 225
conservation of elements' qualities
terms, the principle dodges the qu
the elements are conserved. How
and how do they move from one
reaction? Leaving this an occult q
paid for being able to redefine
substances in the Traité élémentaire de chimie. In a science of balance-
sheet assessments, all that mattered was the concrete residue of a
given analysis weighed on the balance. This instrumental notion,
so impoverished in comparison to the element-principle concept,
allowed Lavoisier to reconstruct the field of theoretical chemistry
around a logic of analysis, along the guiding axis of the simple and
the complex.
Lavoisier's balance was thus more than a costly and ingenious
instrument. It reified a general and abstract principle, thereby
illustrating the incorporation of theory in technical objects that
Bachelard has labeled "phenomenotechnique."25 It was, then, an
abstract material object. The instrument that a chemist manipulated in his laboratory already operated on the level of signs and,
like alphabetical or mathematical signs, it conferred upon its
master the power to abstract. It created a space of discourse and
argumentation that became le théâtre de la preuve. If it is true that
the balance replaced alembics and retorts as the symbol of
chemistry by the end of the eighteenth century,26 it is because it
was already inscribed in the symbolic register.
4. The Balance of Nature
But we must go farther to evaluate the force of conviction carried
by the balance in the chemical revolution. The principle of conservation of matter in chemical reactions was only a single case of
a general model that governed, not only the mineral world, but
other worlds as well.
Behind another instrument designed by Laplace and Lavoisier
to take measurements - the calorimeter, which they first named a
"machine à glace"27 - stood the theoretical principle of equi-
librium between attractive and repulsive forces. Constructed as a
series of compartments encased with ice, the calorimeter afforded
measurements of the quantity of heat disengaged during a chemi-
cal reaction or an animal's respiration, assessed in terms of how
much ice melted. The measure of heat established a relation
between the quantity of the repulsive force or caloric that was lo
and quantity of attraction lost when ice turned to water. Lavoisie
and Laplace hoped to extend this principle to the measure of
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226
THE
EIGHTEENTH
CENTURY
elective affinities by counter
the repulsive force of calori
It would seem that the m
together in a single equati
together such diverse subjec
political economics - in some
underlay the sort of agricult
his holdings at Fréchines
Lavoisier, developments on
recorded in a register
laboratory registers -
harvest
balance
yields
sheet,
- com
where
represented
balance
gains
tion is thus extended to e
vegetable realms. And it p
physiology.
Lavoisier's memoir "Sur l
illustrates the practice of
the air that an animal inha
imagined
them
to
efforts
d'un
a
sort
of
evaluate
d'un
unitary
"à
homme
instrument.
m
combi
qui
On
réc
pou
mécanique dans le travail du
de lettres qui écrit, du musi
their certainty that respirat
and Seguin did not hesitate
and to draw moral reflectio
Comparing what a poor perso
a bout of hard work to a we
need,
they
nature's
condemned
such
sagacity:
Gardons-nous cependant de calomn
nent sans doute à nos institutions
Contentons-nous de bénir la philosop
permettre des institutions sages, qui
et à augmenter le prix du travail, à
toutes les classes de la société, et su
et
de
[In
bonheur.30
the
interim
we
must
that no doubt belong
them. We should not
which
nearer
join
and
to
permit
augment
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us
guard
again
to our social
content ourse
wise institutio
the price of labo
BENSAUDE-VINCENT- THE BALANCE 227
present to all classes - especially the indigent
ness.]
Philosophy + humanity = a compensation for the inequalities of
nature; all the ideas of 1789 carried this program. But, as early as
1 4July, the revolutionary ideal was bruised by the fury of the crowd.
Was not Lavoisier himself directly threatened due to a popular
rumor that gunpowder was being shipped to émigrés?31 It was just
this experience that prompted him and Seguin to express their
fears and develop a contrast in their memoir between an image of
the animal economy, the well-regulated equilibrium of which
resists virtually all circumstances, and the moral order which is
rocked by tumultuous events.
The animal economy owes its marvelous equilibrium to its
regulative mechanisms. Lavoisier emphasized this in relation to
the unitary temperature of animal organisms, taking the oppor-
tunity to describe nature's egalitarianism, which keeps the
temperature of human bodies constant, whether one is rich or
poor, well or badly dressed.32 Then, in the context of a study that
focused on animal perspiration, he lent nature another virtue that
was dear to revolutionaries - liberty.
On ne peut se lasser d'admirer le système de liberté générale que la nature semble
avoir voulu établir dans tout ce qui a rapport aux êtres vivants, en leur donnant la
vie, le mouvement spontané, une force active, des besoins, des passions, elle ne leur
a point interdit d'en faire usage. Elle a voulu qu'ils fussent libres d'en abuser, mais
prudente et sage, elle a mis partout des régulateurs, elle a fait marcher la satiété à
la suite de la jouissance.33
[One can never tire of admiring the system of general liberty that nature seems to
have wanted to establish in all that relates to living things. In giving them life,
spontaneous movement, an active force, needs, and passions, nature never disallowed her creatures' use of these attributes. She wanted them to be free to abuse
them, but ever prudent and wise, she placed regulators everywhere, she made
satisfaction follow pleasure.]
Nature's wisdom rests in the indigestion that keeps the animal
from engaging in excess and gluttony. Lavoisier elevated the
body's regulative mechanisms to the level of moral precepts:
"L'ordre moral a, comme l'ordre physique, ses régulateurs; et s'il
en était autrement il y a longtemps que les sociétés humaines
n'existeraient plus, ou plutôt elles n'auraient jamais existé."34
Lavoisier was not the only one to believe in the balance of nature.
It was a common theme in the eighteenth century and seems to
span naturalist thought from antiquity to modern ecology.35 The
term "balance" was first applied to the animal realm in 1713.36 In
1749 Linnaeus developed the idea of a natural economy that
assumed a proportion or equilibrium among three parameters of
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228
THE
the
EIGHTEENTH
animal
CENTURY
world:
propagat
We see that the classic co
eighteenth century differ
Lavoisier
librium
But
in
was
his
not
Lavoisier's
the idea of a
sing actions,
memoirs
the
same;
model
on
ne
had
t
regulative mec
in the sixth vo
What occasioned Lavoisier
from the rates of specific
tween the realms of nature,
chemistry revived the gener
study of gaseous exchange
respiration. Priestley had in
Observations on Different K
Ingenhousz.39 Relative to t
his work on animal physiolo
titative rather than qualita
balance of nature thus beca
normative
and
regulative
animal, the moral, the socia
mensurable. Thus was the ancient theme, so familiar to
naturalists, translated into new terms that maximized its extension.
5. The Balance of Trade
One year before undertaking his work on calcination, Lavoisier
drafted plans for a eulogy of Colbert in response to a polemically
motivated essay competition sponsored by the Académie des Sciences. Following the Physiocrats' period of triumph in the 1760s that
culminated in the 1763 law granting freedom for the export of
grains, J. M. Terray ascended to the post of Controller General in
1769. In the wake of his appointment, a wave of protests was
launched against this law considered as responsible for the high
price and scarcity of bread. Critics attacked by reviving the model
of Colbert against Sully, who was a hero of the Physiocrats.40
Lavoisier drafted notes for the eulogy before deciding not to
compete. His position in the economic debate seems to have
conformed perfectly with the circumstances and politics of the new
minister - who happened to be his wife's uncle - since he con-
cluded that prosperity was tied,
to the free importation of both
to stimulate manufacturing.41
tisanship, the extant fragments
not to the freeing of exports, but
workers and consumers as a means
But beyond such conjectural parof Lavoisier's projected "Eloge de
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BENSAUDE-VINCENT- THE BALANCE 229
Colbert" developed views close to
economy.42 The political body is
external to humans and subject t
Quesnay had written in his Table
activity is described in terms of
Lavoisier began with a vague tale of
a simple, originary social state wher
provided the "germe d'une altéra
tion, in which commerce and finan
led to the establishment of the trad
the balance in favor of one's in
economic question was transform
before it became a game of politi
king meditated on the greatness of
dans le silence de son cabinet les
commerce . . . calculait l'effet de
maintiennent l'équilibre de la mac
Lavoisier further honed his model. Based on remarks that he
ascribed to Colbert, he claimed the problem was one of hydro-
statics. Money is a circulating fluid that tends to level out whatever
the particular configuration. The economic mechanism presupposes that the quantity in circulation remains constant. The
balance of commerce like that of chemical reactions is governed
by a principle of material conservation. Lavoisier gave the minister
very little room to maneuver. "Puisque tous les efforts humains ne
peuvent parvenir à troubler l'équilibre de la balance du com-
merce, puisqu'un Etat même ne pourrait la faire pencher que pour
quelques instants," there were only two measures left for the
minister to take. He could "faire pencher en sa faveur la balance
des hommes" by augmenting the population, and "faire écouler le
trop-plein de l'argent qui pourrait s'engorger et qui éteindrait
l'industrie."45 The prince's power was equally limited. He could
raise or lower the price of goods, but this artifice had no fundamental impact on the logic of a system in which value depends on the
number of real goods and not on the market.
6. A Reform Program
The ideas presented by Lavoisier were far from original. He was
hardly the first to consider the economic and social orders as
governed by a principle of conservation. The theme of a balance
of nature was not limited to the naturalist tradition, but seems to
have functioned as à general epistemic model by the end of the
eighteenth century.46 Place every subject under calculation, make
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230
THE
EIGHTEENTH
Euler's
CENTURY
algebraic
analysis
the
nature and society, put ev
leitmotif articulated by C
lac.47 Norton Wise deline
librium in French scientific
century. First is the opposi
ces, weights, or electric c
gravimetric balance sheets
Coulomb and Benjamin Fr
librium obtained through v
accidental causes or perturb
characterizes a state of equ
Système du Monde to explain
found in Quetelet's applicati
science - involves the optim
variation. In his various wri
on the first two models of
to
find.
The equilibrium models th
static, totally estranged fr
The political game, reduced
can only alternate between
surprising, then, that the
ring,
so
from
different
from
Lavoisier's
tha
pen?
To
"révolution en physique et
in his laboratory notebook
as prophetic. But, on one
sarily entail the idea of a
probably been over-valued i
one finds any number of ot
"revolution" in a way that w
sense.49 In a memoir on the
"la
perception
établissement
a
des
droits
éprouvé
diff
petites fermes exposées
imtempéries," without an
evoked.50
Even if he set in motion a revolution in physics and chemistry,
in politics, Lavoisier envisaged only reforms. His economic
memoirs often echoed the ideas developed by those great administrators who sought to save the ancien régime. When he
departed from physiocratic orthodoxy, Lavoisier retained the
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BENSAUDE-VINCENT- THE BALANCE 231
measures that Turgot held dear.
abolition of guilds, the suppression
that paralyzed agricultural produc
gested fiscal reform intended to sim
tion of taxes. In the 1780s, he
acquainted with another administra
Physiocracy, Pierre Samuel Dup
Turning his interest from trade to
considered the source of all national wealth, Lavoisier col-
laborated closely with Dupont as members of the Agriculture
Committee from June 1785 to September 1787. At first the committee, established to relieve the scarcity of fodder, was staffed by
four members of the Académie des Sciences. But Lavoisier asked
its founder, Charles Gravier de Vergennes, to add P. Dupont de
Nemours because, he claimed, agricultural questions require administrative as much as scientific competence.51 In effect, after
having expedited a few urgent technical measures - replacement
of substitute crops and artificial grasslands - the committee
developed a long-term analysis. The resulting manuscript (intended for internal use only), "Sur les encouragements qu'il est
nécessaire d'accorder à l'agriculture," which was read at a committee meeting on 31 July 1787, is surely Lavoisier's most daring text.
In it, he denounced the government for neglecting France's most
indigent class and did not hesitate to relate France's agricultural
stagnation to the privileges enjoyed by certain other classes: exemption from the taille , forced labor, ecclesiastical tithes, the salt
tax, user fees for mills, etc.52 Lavoisier was clearly ready to condemn the privileges of the nobility and the clergy, not only in the
name of the revolutionary ideals of equality or fraternity, but
because they blocked the rational organization of agricultural
production. As was true for conducting successful experiments in
chemistry, it was necessary to eradicate all extraneous complica-
tions.
On the eve of the French Revolution, a memoir drafted during
the convocation of the Estates General shows Lavoisier to have still
been aspiring to the establishment of a balance of powers.53 He
showed himself clearly in favor of a political order based solely on
the authority of reason and pronounced himself in favor of a
parliamentary monarchy that linked the will of the people with
that of the king. In the Estates General, he desired equitable
representation for the three orders and insisted at all times that
debates be public and free. Lavoisier ended by declaring his
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232
THE
EIGHTEENTH
attachment
law.
to
CENTURY
the
person
of
As representative of the th
cial assembly, Lavoisier dep
and defends, while he assi
drawing up tables and cal
name.54 Having suggested
the
and
creation
the
of
a
bureau
production
of
of
a
m
pauvre n'a point de ressources pour placer ses économies
s'il n'a ni le temps, ni les moyens de calculer,
de ses économies, d'en suivre le placement,
lique, c'est à vous Messieurs, qu'il appart
calculer pour lui"55 [The poor man has no res
invest his savings. . . . But if he has neither th
to calculate, to be vigilant with the use an
savings, then it is a public charge, it is up to y
and calculate for him]. In short, social jus
calculus. It needs the quiet cabinet of a scie
sound and the fury of an assembly hall.
7. Minister or Magister?
In 1791, Lavoisier was called upon to reor
Treasury and construct the budget for 1792.
asked Lavoisier to take the position of min
refusal could certainly be justified by Louis X
But, more important than circumstances, L
up for a political concept. The ministry could
involved in a crisis, drawn to one side and then another, such
involvement contradicts the ideal of the balance. Political action
steals the world from thought, from weighty deliberation.
Lavoisier referred to the balance in his letter of refusal addressed
to Louis XVI: "Je ne suis nijacobin, ni feuillant. Je ne suis d'aucune
club. Accoutumé à tout peser au poids de ma conscience et de ma
raison; jamais je n'aurais pu consentir à aliéner mes opinions à
aucun pacte"57 [I am neither Jacobin nor Feuillant. I follow no
club. Accustomed to ponder everything with the weight of my
conscience and my reason, I would never consent to subordinate
my opinions to any pact] .
It was the static model of the balance that devalued ministerial
duties and made surrounding political events seem like sterile
agitation. As a good disciple of d'Alembert, Lavoisier connected
everything dynamic to a problem of statics. Political shocks seemed
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BENSAUDE-VINCENT- THE BALANCE 233
like surface effects that concealed
only to a wise man who was wi
maneuvers in a sphere of sterile
measures and evaluates. Lavoisier
just hardened his position in the
wrote in the "Eloge de Colbert":
Ceux qui ont vu de près les ministres, ou ceux
été que trop à la portée de remarquer qu'ent
entourés souvent d'hommes artificieux qui
couleurs les plus séduisantes, ce qu'ils s'im
propre intérêt, ils tomberaient nécessairemen
un certain tact que donne la réflexion, si de
dans le silence du cabinet, avant d'arriver au m
à la crise perpetuelle dans laquelle ils doivent
[Those who have watched ministers from clos
be one, were only too much within reach of n
affairs, often surrounded by artificial men ab
imagine to be the most seductive colors fav
necessarily fell into an involuntary skepticism,
if the knowledge and principles acquired in th
to the ministry, did not prepare them in adv
they must pass their days.]
In 1789, he ended his memoire "Su
with this reflection:
Il n'est pas indispensable, pour bien mériter de l'humanité et payer son tribut à la
patrie, d'être appelé à ces fonctions publiques et éclatantes qui concourent à
l'organisation et à la régénération des empires. Le physicien peut aussi, dans le
silence de son laboratoire et de son cabinet, exercer des fonctions patriotiques; il
peut espérer par ses travaux, de diminuer la masse des maux qui affligent l'espèce
humaine; d'augmenter ses jouissances et son bonheur, et n'eut-il contribué, par les
routes nouvelles qu'il s'est ouvertes, qu'à prolonger de quelques années, de
quelques jours même, la vie moyenne des hommes; il pourrait aspirer aussi au titre
glorieux de bienfaiteur de l'humanité.59
[To be a worthy human being and pay tribute to one's patrie, it is not essential to fill
those public and brilliant functions that lead to the organization and regeneration
of empires. The scientist can also exercise patriotic functions in the silence of his
laboratory and study. He can hope by his work to diminish the mass of ills that afflict
the human race, to augment their pleasure and happiness. And does he not
contribute, by the new routes that he opens, to the prolongation by some years, or
even by some days, of the average life of his fellows? He too can aspire to the glorious
title of benefactor of humanity.]
Thus the savant challenges the politician in his social mission.
Progress is achieved in a science laboratory rather than in political
debates. The minister, as his name indicates, finds himself in a
minor - a diminished - position. In contrast, the scientist who
weighs and measures can serve as a magister in politics.
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234
THE
EIGHTEENTH
CENTURY
8. Conclusion
It thus seems impossible to oppose two faces of Lavoisier, revolutionary in science and reformer in politics. It was one and the same
model of the balance or of equilibrium that inspired his views in
chemistry, physiology, economics, and in politics. The balance
mediated between his science and his politics, between his
chemistry and ideology. In this regard, this essay confirms the
conclusions of Norton Wise's study of other "mediating objects" in
the work of Kelvin. Far from contaminating science with ideology,
the social context plays a positive role, productive of knowledge.60
Lavoisien chemistry mobilized all the resources available in the
surrounding cultural milieu.
But the balance, even more than the steam engine and the
electric telegraph - mediating machines studied by Wise - com-
pels us to examine its nature. Just how did the balance act
throughout Lavoisier's work? Was it a material object, an abstract
concept, a model, a metaphor, or some other rhetorical figure?
Was it an instrument that embodied or incarnated an abstract idea,
as Wise maintains? The balance was not simply a mix of the
abstract and the concrete. We can better understand it as having
served as a sort of processing unit that connected terms of the most
diverse nature by rendering them commensurable. It made it
possible to cross any divide and relate the most dissimilar of things:
from chemical substances with individual properties to the grain
trade and philosophical endeavors. It was a universal mediator, a
principle of continuity. In this sense it fits into Michel Serres'
category of "quasi-object," an object that circulates, passes
through, connects, mediates, and finally creates the consensus that
welds a collective, culture, or community.61
The archetype of Lavoisier's balance is Archimedes' lever, which
plays an analogous role in Plutarch's famous narrative; it renders
commensurable human force with the force of a float and the work
of a mathematician with the power of a prince.62 We can marvel
at the similarity between the death myths that surround these two
men. Archimedes, summoned to appear before Marcellus after
the fall of Syracuse, asks for the time to solve a mathematical
problem. "The soldier, irritated, draws his sword and kills him."63
Lavoisier, while appearing before the revolutionary tribunal with
his fellow farmers general, is said to have requested a stay of
execution so as to be able to complete his work. The president is
said to have replied, "La république n'a pas besoin de savants."64
Are these legends? No doubt. But they enunciate one and the
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BENSAUDE-VINCENT- THE BALANCE 235
same theme: that equilibrium betw
power and science, is a Utopia. T
one side.
Notes
I would like to thank Lissa Roberts for her helpful critique of an earlier draft and
translating this essay.
1. A. L. Lavoisier, Cahier de laboratoire, 20 February 1773. Quoted in He
Guerlac, Lavoisier - The Crucial Year: The Background and Origin of his First Experimen
Combustion in 1772 (Ithaca, 1967), 228-30.
2. Jean-Baptiste Dumas, Leçons sur la Philosophie chimique (1837; rep. Brussels, 19
109-11.
3. Maurice Daumas, Les instruments scientifiques au XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles (Paris, 1953) ;
C. C. Gillispie, The Edge of Objectivity (Princeton, 1960) ; Anders Lundgren, "The Changing
Role of Numbers in 18th-Century Chemistiy," in Tore Frangsmyr, J. L. Heilbron, Robin
E. Rider, eds., The Quantifying Spirit in the Eighteenth Century (Berkeley, 1990), 245-66.
4. See especially François Dagognet, Tablaux et langages de la chimie (Paris, 1969) .
5. Edouard Grimaux, Lavoisier 1 743-1 794 d ' après sa correspondances, ses manuscrits , ses
papiers de famille et autres documents inédits (Paris, 1888) , chapter 3.
6. Gillispie, Objectivity , 230-31.
7. C. C. Gillispie, Science and Polity in France at the End of the Old Regime (Princeton,
1980). Illustrated first in the work of J. Becher and the development of the cameralist
movement, it was manifested in France as well by the end of the Ancien Régime. For
example, Turgot wrote on the expansibility of gas at the same time that he pursued
economic issues in a manner that diverged slightly from Physiocratic ideas. This was
followed by his tenure as minister between 1775-76. It was he who charged Lavoisier with
the task of reorganizing the production of saltpeter in 1775. As we will see, Lavoisier's
views were in many ways similar to those of Turgot.
8. Hélène Metzger, "La Chimie," in M. E. Cavaignac, ed., Histoire du Monde , Tome
12 (Paris, 1930); Daumas, Instruments^ Frederic L. Holmes, Eighteenth-Century Chemistry as
an Investigative Enterprise (Berkeley, 1989) .
y. Robert Mu Ith auf, On the Use or the Balance in Chemistry, Proceedings oj the
American Philosophical Society 106 (1962) :2 10-1 8; J. T. Stock, The Development of the Chemical
Balance (London, 1969).
10. For details see Robert Siegfried, "Lavoisier and the Conservation of Weight
Principle," Bulletin of History of Chemistry 5 (1989): 20. See also Gillispie, Objectivity, 205.
11. Arthur Donovan, "The Origin of Modern Chemistry," Osiris (2nd ser.) 4
(1988):214-31, and "A Response to Perrin," Isis 81 (1990):270-72.
12. This balance, on exhibit at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers, was
used by Lavoisier and Hauy to determine measurement standards for the Commission
on Weights and Measures, and by Lefevre-Gineau in 1799 for a similar purpose.
13. Lundgren, "Changing Role," 265.
14. Jacob Volhard developed a similar argument in his polemical article aimed
against the French thesis of Wurtz, that of Lavoisier as immortal founder of chemistry.
See Volhard, "La chimie constituée par Lavoisier," in Le Moniteur scientifique 14 (1872) :5960.
15. John McEvoy, "Continuity and Discontinuity in the Chemical Revolution," Osiris
(2nd Ser.) 4 (1988): 195-2 13, esp. 205-09; see also McEvoy, "Enlightenment and Dissent
in Science: Joseph Priestley and the Limits of Theoretical Reasoning," Enlightenment and
Dissent 2 (1983):59-60.
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236
THE
16.
17.
1
5
8.
EIGHTEENTH
Alexandre
Lavoisier,
Frederic
CENTURY
Koyré, Etudes Galilée
Oeuvres II (Paris, 186
L.
Holmes,
"Lavoisier,
th
(1989):4-31.
19.
20.
See
Bruno
Latour,
Lavoisier,
acides,"
in
Ac
"Considerations
gé
Oeuvreslî,
Science
509-27
(originall
in Gillispie, Objectivity , 241-49.
21. Lavoisier, Oeuvres, 11:522.
22.
Epicurus,
Letter
to
Herodotus,
23. Lavoisier, Oeuvres, 1:101.
24. H. Le Chatelier, Avant-propos in Lavoisier, Traité élémentaire de chimie (Paris,
1937).
25. Gaston Bachelard , Le nouvel esprit scientifique (Paris, 1971 ), 1 7. See also Bachelard,
Essai sur la connaissance approchée (Paris, 1928), 70.
26. Gillispie, Objectivity, 205.
27. Lavoisier and Laplace, "Mémoire sur la chaleur," Oeuvres, 11:283-333. See Lissa
Roberts, "A Word and the World: the Significance of Naming the Calorimeter," Isis 82
(1991): 198-222.
28. Lavoisier, "Résultats de quelques expériences d'agriculture et réflexions sur leurs
relations avec l'économie politique," Oeuvres, 11:812-23; Grimaux, Lavoisier, 165-68.
29. Lavoisier, Oeuvres, 11:697.
30. Ibid.,$ 98-99.
31. Grimaux, Lavoisier, 93,200.
32. Lavoisier, Oeuvres, V:387-88.
33. Lavoisier, "Sur la transpiration animale," Oeuvres, 11:713. Originally published
1790.
34. Ibid.
35. F. N. Egerton, "Changing Concepts of the Balance of Nature," Quarterly Review of
Biology 48 (1973):322-35.
36. "The balance of the animal world is, throughout all ages, kept even, and by a
curious harmony and just proportion between the increase of all animals, and the length
of their lives, the world is through all ages well, but not overstored." William Derham,
Physico-Theology, 3rd ed. (London, 1714), 171. Cited in Egerton, "Changing Concepts,"
333.
37. C. Linnaeus, Oeconomia Naturae ( 1 749) and L 'Equilibre de la nature, trans. B. Jasmin
and introduction by Camille Limoges (Paris, 1972), 7-25.
38. Buffon, Histoire naturelle, VI (Paris, 1756), 247. In any given territory, Buffon
stated, population equilibrium is achieved from the oscillation between abundance and
scarcity, between a species' reproductive capacity and destructive forces such as
meteorological conditions, predators, and the quantity of available nourishment.
39. Joseph Priestley, "Observations on Different Kinds of Air," Philosophical Transactions 62 (1772).
40. G. Schelle and E. Grimaux, Lavoisier, Statistique agricole (Paris, 1894).
41 . Lavoisier, Oeuvres, VI: 1 1 7.
42. G. Weulersse, Le mouvement physiocratique en France { Paris, 1910) , and Laphysiocratie
sous le ministere de Turgot et de Necker (Paris, 1950) .
43. Lavoisier, Oeuvres, VI: 1 1 1-1 2.
44. Ibid., 114-15.
45. IMd., 116.
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and
BENSAUDE-VINCENT- THE BALANCE 237
46. Norton Wise and Crosbie Smith, "Work
Natural Philosophy in Nineteenth-Century Britai
391-449; 28 (1990), 221-61. See 27 (1989), 268.
47. Robin E. Rider, "Measure of Ideas, Rule of
in the 18th Century," in Frangsmyr et al, Quantify
48. See Carleton Perrin, "Lavoisier's Though
1 772-1 773," Isis 77 (1986) : 647-66, and "Revolutio
in Eighteenth-Century Concepts of Scientific Cha
423.
49. See Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent, La révolution
ing.
50. Lavoisier, "Calculs des produits des différents baux de la Ferme générale,"
Oeuvres, VI: 125, 127.
51. Lavoisier, Oeuvres, Correspondance, IV: 17-19.
52. Lavoisier, Oeuvres, VI: 17-19
53. Ibid., 313-34.
54. Ibid., 256-57.
55. Ibid., 245.
56. The French word penser (to think) derives from peser (to weigh) .
57. Schelle and Grimaux, Statistique agricole, xlviii.
58. Lavoisier, Oeuvres, VI: 11 4.
59. Lavoisier, Oeuvres, 11:703.
60. Norton Wise, "Mediating Machines," Science in Context 2 (1988):77-113.
61. Michel Serres. Le Parasite (Paris. 19801. and Statues (Paris. 19871.
62. See Plutarch, "Vie de Marcellus," in Vie Parallèles des hommes illustrés, tome I, trans.
F. Amyot (Paris, 1937). Michel Authier, "Archimède ou le canon du savant," in Michel
Serres, ed., Eléments d'histoire des sciences (Paris, 1989), 101-26. See also Bruno Latour,
"The Leverage Point of Experiments," in Homer LeGrand, ed. Experimental Enquiries:
Australian Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science (Dordrecht, 1990) , 48-79.
63. Authier, Archimede, 123.
64. J. Guillaume, "Un mot légendaire: La république n'a pas besoin de savants,"
Révolution française 39 (1900): 385-99. Michelle Goupil and Alain Horeau, "'La
république n'a pas besoin de savants': Légende ou réalité?" La Vie des Sciences 7:3
(1990): 23 1-36.
Fy. â
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