Deluc, Davy, and the impact of the battery on natural philosophy

This paper focuses on Deluc’s last contributions to the study of electricity. Printed between 1804 and 1815, they belong to an age dominated by what John L. Heilbron has called “The Standard Model of 1800.” The paper shows that Deluc was involved in the “broadening of the social base of experimental activity” connecting philosophers, instrument makers, and industrialists. A process which, according to Larry Stewart, characterized the “knowledge economy” around 1800. The increasing epistemological role credited to electrical apparatus went hand in hand with an increasing awareness of the role of artifacts and machines in culture at large. The paper shows that, in that same period, the science of electricity came to favor mid-range concepts and intellectual frugality over the search for broad systems of knowledge.