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The Lawyer and the Lightning Rod

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Jessica Riskin
Jessica Riskin
Affiliation:
Program in Science, Technology and SocietyMassachusetts Institute of TechnologyCambridge, Massachusetts
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Abstract

In the summer of 1783, a trial took place in the French city of Arras. One M. de Vissery, a resident of the nearby village of St. Omer, was appealing a decision by his local aldermen, who required him to remove a lightning rod he had put on his chimney. His young defense lawyer was Maximilien Robespierre, who made a name for himself by winning the case. In preparation, Robespierre and his senior colleague corresponded with natural philosophers and jurisconsultants. Robes- pierre then persuasively resolved the crucial problem, namely, the proper relations of scientific to legal authority. He exploited the empiricist dogma common to contemporary physics and jurisprudence to argue that judges need not defer to scientific experts, but must only consider the facts, which required no expertise. It was a first approximation of an argument Robespierre would make with mounting authority over the next decade.

Type
Article
Information
Science in Context , Volume 12 , Issue 1 , Spring 1999 , pp. 61 - 99
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1999

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