Le spectacle du ciel

Abstract

From 1799 until 1810, the naturalist Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck (1744-1829) published eleven Annuaires containing weather predictions and meteorological treatises. More than offering a weather forecast, Lamarck’s aim with these publications was to foster the creation of a meteorological discipline. To encourage his readers to join his meteorological project, he constantly emphasized the many useful benefits that would come from knowing what the weather will be. This article therefore discusses the mobilizing potential of this ideal of utilité but also reflects on its limits. While usefulness was a shared epistemic value, his readers applied his meteorological theory and methodology in a flexible way. This led Lamarck to not consider most of their contributions as part of useful meteorology and, therefore, from the eighth volume onwards a change takes place in his rhetoric of persuasion. Lamarck instead argues for the importance of having a devotion and love of nature, especially for its atmospheric phenomena, as the main driving force that will propel meteorology forward.