NATURE 
[ Fepruary 4, 1897 
SCIENCE AND MORALS. 
Bes some little time past the intellectual air of Paris 
has been enlivened by a controversy between men 
like M. Berthelot, M. Lavisse, M. Anatole France, and 
M. Gaston Paris, as supporters of the gospel that the dis- 
interested search for truth isa guide to morality, and a 
reactionary party which has, with surprising dialectics, 
attempted to sustain a plea of the “failure of science.” 
From the 7zmes of Friday last, we learn that on Thurs- 
day the reception at the Academy of M. Gaston Paris, 
the successor of M. Renan as the head of the Collége 
de France, and one of those who have. done most in 
philological studies to maintain the renown of French 
science, was the occasion of a signal demonstration 
against the reactionary, unscientific spirit. 
M. Gaston Paris is reported to have said :— 
““Tt will be understood that science, which every day en- 
hances, enlarges, and renders more precise our conception of 
the world, and which transforms, at the same time more and 
more effectively, the conditions of our existence by submitting 
to our laws the matter which was crushing us, inspires an en- 
thusiasm almost religious in those enamoured of it. No one 
had this cult more deeply rooted in his soul than M. Pasteur. 
No one claimed more insistently for science the honour and 
the place to which it has a right, or became more indignant 
with the stupid misunderstanding which refuses to it the 
means of action of which it stands in need. In a _ brief 
piece of writing, entitled ‘Le Budget de la Science,’ published 
in 1868, he adjured his fellow-citizens to take more interest in 
“those sacred abodes known under the expressive name of 
laboratories. Ask that they should be multiplied and adorned. 
They are the temples of the future. It is there that humanity 
becomes greater and stronger and better.’ He had the joy and 
the supreme honour to see rise under his invocation, owing to 
the munificence of the entire nation, the most magnificent of 
these temples of the future. There he reposes to-day in his 
glory, and about his tomb has been formed, like an order of the 
new times, a militant, truly spiritual band which fights under 
his banner to extend his conquests, and which will remain 
faithful to the motto which he gave it while working unremit- 
tingly—‘ Pour la science, la patrie, et ’humaniteé.’ ” 
But, continued. M. Gaston Paris, science had more than one 
method, and he recalled the memorable sitting some twenty 
years ago when Renan received Pasteur into the Academy, and 
these two great men exchanged words never to be forgotten, 
Pasteur proclaiming the grandeur of the experimental method 
as the only infallible instrument of discovery, and Renan claim- 
ing for historic and philosophic criticism the share due to it in 
the conquest and defence of truth. 
M. Gaston Paris went on to say :— 
‘*This science of which Pasteur was the priest and the 
prophet, this science to which we owe so many marvels, is 
accused of not having kept certain promises, some of which 
have been made by representations that it disowns, and others 
of which can only be realised with time. A special reproach 
made against it is that it is not yet ready to provide humanity 
with the moral direction of which it stands in need. Science 
might reply that it does not extend its empire so far, and that 
other forces which it does not deny are destined to do in 
the field of, sentiment and action what it does in the 
field of. knowledge. But it can, and rightly, as Pasteur 
affirmed, .lay claim to its large share in this moral direc- 
tion itself. If, unfortunately, it is not certain that in point- 
ing out in the social instinct the true basis of morals, it 
assures to this instinct predominance over selfish instincts, it is 
certain that. in drawing tighter the bands that bind men together, 
in undermining the barriers which still separate them, it renders 
easier and indicates as nearer at hand the civilisation of the 
world asa whole... . 
“* Science, in the circles where it is honoured and compre- 
hended, does not restrict to men’of science themselves the moral 
benefit which it confers. « It diffuses in wider circles the love of 
truth and the habit of seeking it without bias, of recognising it 
only by unalloyed proofs, and of submitting docilely to it. I 
think that no loftier or more fruitful virtue can be inculcated in 
a nation,” 
NO. 1423, VOL. 55| 
THE PHOTOGRAPHIC OBSERVATION OF 
CLOUDS. 
T is a commonplace to say that the phenomena that 
present themselves most frequently are also those 
that are least observed with accuracy and intelligence. 
The ever-changing aspect of our sky, and the screen of 
vapour covering that adds charm to landscape and 
variety to scenery, present numberless opportunities 
for study and critical examination, but they have long 
waited for adequate description and representation. It 
was not till the beginning of this century that any 
special nomenclature was invented to describe the 
alterations that take place from hour to hour, and the 
very slight additions that have been made to this special 
vocabulary since Luke Howard proposed the three well- 
known terms of description, show the neglect from which 
this department of meteorology has suffered. These 
terms, too, though they have become the common 
property of all nations, are limited to description, and 
suggest nothing of the physical causes that determine 
the appearances he so happily described. Indeed, 
meteorology in his day was not in a position to push 
the inquiry with hope of success, and it may even still 
be urged that the explanations offered to account for 
some of the recognised types of cloud formation are 
largely speculative. This neglect of a very charming 
study has been brought about, not only by the fact that 
clouds are of ordinary every-day occurrence, and there- 
fore not worth noting, but students of practical meteor- 
ology have perhaps too much considered that barometer 
and thermometer readings are the one thing needful, 
and have looked to the preparation of a weather chart 
as a veritable sheet-anchor to maintain and support the 
position of the science. For hitherto the general 
character of cloud observation among even painstaking 
meteorologists has been lamentably insufficient. A 
rough personal estimate of the percentage of area 
covered by cloud is frequently all that is given, with 
very little reference to the distance from the zenith 
at which these clouds are seen, and consequently 
neglecting the effects of foreshortening. Altitude, 
density, direction of motion, character of formation 
have all been regarded as of small consequence, but it 
is to be hoped that an epoch of more useful and more 
exact observation is dawning and possibly we may run 
into the other extreme, now that attention is being called 
to the subject, and devote too much time to the con- 
sideration of these fleeting appearances, and accumulate 
more results than can be effectively studied. : 
It might have been anticipated that artists, who 
maintain so constantly that they reproduce precisely 
what they see, would have given us pictures of clouds in 
some degree approaching to accuracy, and have made 
the ‘discussion of their forms and characteristics easier 
for men of science. But as a rule the study of these 
specialists has scareely been more exact or painstaking 
than that of the ordinary public, who, from the causes 
hinted at, are especially unfitted to apply that wholesome 
criticism which might have resulted in promoting more 
accurate representation. We believe there is a case on 
record in which a painter represented a rainbow with 
the colours reversed. This was unwise, because a 
rainbow being a rarer phenomenon than ordinary clouds, 
it has attracted more attention from the public, and the 
error was noticed. But faults as egregious too often 
accompany artistic production of clouds, and pass without 
censure or remark. Painters may make rain fall from 
a thin strip of cloud, or from impossible cumulus, and 
escape without ridicule. But these are freaks it is no 
longer safe to indulge in.’ i 
The artist, too, who paints by sunlight and without the 
aid of brushes and colours, is often as glaringly incorrect 
as his more respected and ambitious brother. We have 
