Within the last decade historians of science have increasingly investigated the the material culture of science. This paper exemplarily introduces into current approaches by means of unfolding hitherto unrecognised layers of cultural meaning embodied in an important experimental apparatus of late 18th century enlightened natural philosophy. It concerns Charles Agustin Coulomb's electrostatic torsion balance. I will show that despite the fact that the experiment could not have worked precisiely the instrument - the balance electrique - became emblematic in French enlightened cultur because it acted like a mediating machine.
