Ray, John

RAY, JOHN

(b. Black Notley, Essex, England, 29 November 1627; d. Black Notley, 17 January 1705)

natural history.

Ray may have acquired his interest in science during his early years at Black Notley, where his father, Roger Ray, was blacksmith and his mother, Elizabeth, attained local eminence for her skills as an amateur herbalist and medical practitioner. He acknowledged that he had been devoted to the study of botany since his earliest years (Catalogus . . . cantabrigiam …, preface). After attending the grammar school at Brain tree, he entered Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1644, graduating B.A. in 1648 and M.A. in 165!. An academic career unfolded smoothly during the Commonwealth and Protectorate; he was elected fellow of Trinity in 1649, and during the next decade he held college teaching positions in Greek, mathematics, and humanities, as well as other minor offices. This course was suddenly interrupted in 1662 with the Act of Uniformity. Ray refused to take the oath required by the Act and thus elected to sacrifice his fellowship and leave Cambridge.

Subsequently Ray’s work was supported by the generous patronage of his younger Cambridge contemporary Francis Willughby. For more than a decade, Willughby’s estates at Middleton Hall, Warwickshire, and Wollaton Hall, Nottingham, were the bases for Ray’s expeditions throughout Britain. Ray and Willughby became close collaborators, their most ambitious journey (1663–1666) being through the Low Countries, Germany, and Italy, with short visits by Ray to Sicily and Malta. The return journey, through France and Switzerland, included a long stay in Montpellier, where Ray formed one of his main scientific friendships, with Martin Lister, who also was making a Continental tour.

Upon his return to England, Ray was elected fellow of the Royal Society on 7 November 1667; he very seldom attended the meetings, however, although some of his letters to Oldenburg were published in the Phylosophical Transactions. Upon Oldenburg’s death Ray was offered the secretaryship of the Society hut refused it, probably for a mixture of conscientious and temperamental reasons; he found an obscure existence most convenient for his work as a naturalist. The close partnership with Willughby ended with the latter’s death in 1672. In the same year Ray married Margaret Oakeley, a member of the household at Middleton Hall. With their four daughters they retired to Black Notley, where Ray spent the rest of his life engaged in prolific writing and correspondence.

Despite serious interest in natural history in Britain and aspirations to compose comprehensive floras and faunas, little had been achieved by Ray’s time. The partnership of Ray and Willughby attempted to meet these ambitions by composing a systema naturae based on firsthand observation, collaboration, and the critical use of authorities. This ambitious enterprise emerged early in their partnership, Ray undertaking to compose a historia plantarum, while Willughby agreed to study “birds, beasts, fishes and insects” (Derham, Memorials, p. 33). Their close association prevented strict compartmentalization, making it possible for Ray to take over the entire work after Willughby’s death.

Ray’s scientific apprenticeship occurred during the early phase of enthusiasm for experimental philosophy, which was reflected in an outburst of scientific activity at both Oxford and Cambridge. At Cambridge overriding influence was exerted by the Platonists, who provided the most important formative influence on Ray’s natural philosophy. He absorbed their deep religious motivation for the study of nature as a means to reveal the workings of God in His creation. Among the young Cambridge scholars Ray found many collaborators, including the anatomist Walter Needham. Their initial activities embraced the whole range of experimental natural philosophy, but comparative anatomy and botany emerged as Ray’s central preoccupations.

Ray’s interest in botany began after an illness in 1650. During country walks undertaken for recreation, he became interested in the precise study of the local flora. Soon he and his friends embarked on a systematic investigation of the flora of Cambridgeshire, establishing small botanical gardens at their colleges. The joint nature of this venture was underlined by the anonymous publication of the catalogus plantarum circa Cantabrigiam nascentium (1660). But there is no doubt that Ray was the prime contributor. His first publication created entirely new standards for the composition of British floras. The preface surveyed the defective English botanical literature, which, if comprehensive, was a derivative compilation; where it was more original, it was sketchy and incomplete. Ray looked to the Continent for more exalted standards, finding particular satisfaction in the work of Jean and Gaspard Bauhin, who provided him with the immediate model for the Cambridge catalog and a more genera! guide to the composition of the historia plantarum.

The main section of the Cambridge catalog followed Gaspard Bauhin’sCatalogus plantarum circa Basileam sponte nascentium … (Base!, 1622). Ray gave an alphabetical list of species, including descriptions of little-known species or problematical groups, as well as detailed consideration of nomenclature and localities. At many points he experienced difficulty in reconciling his observations with the descriptions and nomenclature of the standard authorities. On the whole he displayed great caution, resisting the temptation to multiply species, although some cases of variable flower color were subdivided unnecessarily (Raven, John Ray, pp. 93–94). Like other authors he was weak on nonflowering plants, trees, shrubs, and grasses; but whereas Bauhin had dealt only with wild species, Ray gave valuable information on cultivated varieties. The potato was introduced in the brief appendix which he published in 1663.

So successful was the Cambridge catalog that it was not supplanted until Babington’s Flora of Cambridgeshire (1860), which acknowledged that Ray had recognized 558 species. A broader dimension was added to the catalog by brief concluding essays on morphology and classification. Ray had obtained from Hartlib the manuscript of Joachim Jungius’ then unpublished Isagoge phytoscopica, which was recognized as sufficiently important for Ray to include a digest of its contents, giving definitions of the main plant parts. He also presented a brief system of classification derived from Jean Bauhin’s Historia plantarum universalis (1650–1651). Thus over a wide area, from etymology to classification, Ray’s first work gave indications of his later preoccupations.

No sooner was the Cambridge catalog completed than Ray began work on a Phytologia Britannica to replace the feeble British plant list of that title by William Howe (1650). Preparation for this work involved expeditions to most parts of Britain. during which he also collected materials for other works. The catalogus plantarum Angliae … (1 670) followed the same plan as his Cambridge catalog, with the addition of sections on pharmacology, a subject which had interested Ray since childhood. This material was gathered from a large number of sources and was assessed with Ray’s characteristic caution. The alphabetical list of species and localities demonstrated his extensive acquaintance with the British flora, and gave more attention to trees, mountain plants, and grasses than in his previous catalog.

The two catalogs mark the first phase of Ray’s botanical work. He then turned his attention to the wider issues of physiology, morphology, and taxonomy in a series of brief communications. An important step was the fulfillment of a request from John Wilkins to compose the tables of plants for the Essay Towards a Real character (166). This confronted Ray with the basic problems of classification, as well as imposing an arbitrary condition that taxonomic divisions be tripartite. Ray’s tables indicate a search for consistent new taxonomic principles. Although the results were not entirely satisfactory, his work scarcely deserved the strong censures of Robert Morison, the irascible Oxford botanist.

In response to a questionnaire from the Royal Society, Ray submitted four botanical papers, on the motion of sap, on germination, on specific differences, and on the number of species. In his work on germination he slightly antedated Malpighi in making the monocotyledon-dicotyledon distinction, which became fundamental to his ideas on taxonomy. Two papers were concerned with the crucial issue of evolving satisfactory criteria for the identification of species, in order to replace the inconsistent and ad hoc methods used by previous writers. Ray appealed for the use of a small range of invariable morphological characteristics, instead of features liable to wide variation, which would lead to unnecessary multiplication of species. Ray realized that many of the “species” then recognized had little permanence, and he believed on both Biblical and empirical grounds that the true species In nature were “fixed and determinate.” The essays presented to the Royal Society were published as a brief Latin work, Methodus plantarum (1682), with the intention of providing general principles for botanists attempting to define species and to arrive at a sound classification of the seemingly endless profusion of nature.

Ray came to agree with Cesalpino and Morison that the seed vessel was sufficiently invariable to provide the soundest basis for natural classification. Nevertheless he claimed that the petals, calyx, and leaf arrangement must also be taken into account. According to these priorities Ray opened his book with three sections expanding his paper on seeds, reemphasizing the monocotyledon-dicotyledon distinction as the guide to major taxonomic categories. The germination of various seeds was described in detail, using illustrations drawn from Malpighi’s Anatomia plantarum (1675–1679). The Methodus ended with two new sections. Part IV reverted to Ray’s early interest in Jungius, analyzing the flower into its Constituent parts, with reference to both structure and function. The distinction between simple and composite inflorescences was clearly recognized. Having clarified the structure of fruits, seeds, and flowers, in part V Ray described his own ideas on classification, which had been evolving since the publication of his Cambridge catalog. The influence of Bauhin was still apparent, hut many novel features were introduced. Herbs were given a tripartite classification into imperfect flowers (cryptogams), dicotyledons, and monocotyledons. This basic division was sound, as were many of the thirty-six “fami1y” groupings of dicotyledons. For example, emphasis on seed vessels brought the varied flower and inflorescence types of the Ranunculaceae into a single natural group. An unsatisfactory aspect of this classification was the treatment of trees and shrubs. Although it was recognized that these were arbitrary divisions, they were retained in deference to popular usage.

Sufficient time had now passed for Ray to feel it necessary to bring his work on the English flora up to date. A brief supplement, Fasciculus stirpium Britannicarum (1688), was a prelude to the full revision of the English catalog, Synopsis stirpium Britannicarum (1690), which included numerous additions, particularly of cryptogams and grasses, many collected by the young botanists in Ray’s circle. Medical notes, greatly shortened, were placed in an appendix. Like Ray’s other catalogs, this text was designed for use as a field guide. For larger flowering plants the Synopsis reached the scope of modern floras. Also, for the first time Ray dispensed with alphabetical order in favor of the classification outlined in his Methodus, another important step toward the form of later floras. The treatment of trees and shrubs remained anomalous and imperfect.

Other plant lists illustrate Ray’s continuing interest in taxonomic principles. Sylloge Europeanarum (1694) consisted primarily of European plant lists, but it was less systematic and detailed than complementary English lists. In a long preface Ray gave an extensive critique of the principles of classification adopted by A. Q. Bachmann (Rivinus), defending the use of a range of morphological criteria against Bachmann’s artificial system based on corolla types. Bachmann’s reply and a further rejoinder by Ray were published as an appendix to the second edition of Synopsis Britannicarum (1696). Again Ray defended the Methodus and gave a summary of the classification used in his Historia plant arum as an illustration of its practical applicability. A postscript was added to the Synopsis in reply to J. P. de Tournefort, whose Elemens de botanique (1694) had criticized Ray’s classification. Tournefort had such authority that Ray was prompted to compose a separate tract against him, Dissertatio de methodus (1696). He granted that a single obvious criterion for classification was desirable; but although writers from Cesalpino to Tournefort had shown the superiority of fruit characteristics, this method resulted in certain crucial anomalies. To reinforce his views still further, Ray completely revised the Methodus, which became Methodus emendata (1703), the final, clearest, and most satisfactory statement of his principles and system of classification.

Although Ray’s catalogs are his best-known writings, a series of works indicates his continual concern with the principles of taxonomy, his gradually evolving views being vigorously defended against the more influential followers of Cesalpino, This work provided the foundation for his magnum opus, the Historia plantarum (1686–1704), a 3,000-folio-page work designed to supplant the encyclopedic herbals of the brothers Bauhin. Its aim was to classify and list ail known plants, with the goal of being comprehensive for Europe. Its more difficult function was to integrate information about exotic floras, which had been subject to considerable attention during the century. Such histories were often begun but rarely completed, as witnessed by the work of Ray’s antagonist Morison. Furthermore, the rapid rate of discovery quickly rendered such works obsolete. Fully aware of these difficulties, Ray began the Historia with great confidence. It began with an extensive general botanical treatise covering certain subjects not previously considered in his writings. Ray displayed wide and critical reading over the whole field, and on many topics he presented extensive firsthand knowledge. This is well illustrated by the opening section, in which Jungius’ definition of a plant is adopted, including “lacking sensation” among its criteria. In order to retain this definition, it was necessary for Ray to overcome the anomaly of the sensitive plant, Mimosa pudica, which had led to an increasingly popular doctrine of plant sensitivity. After a careful study of plant movement, Ray adopted a mechanism which could explain all movement mechanically, without recourse to the doctrine of sensitivity.

Ray derived his anatomy and morphology of the vegetative organs primarily from Grew and Malpighi, and gave considerable details of the floral parts, fruits, seeds, and germination in terms of their relevance to classification. He took a generally favorable attitude toward Grew’s theory that the stamens were the male sex organs. Considering the nature of species, Ray reemphasized the view that breeding true from seed was a necessary test of a natural species. His previously strong conviction about the fixity of species was slightly modified. Examination of many case histories convinced him that limited transmutation was possible. For classification the system developed in his Methodus was followed, as it had been in the more limited Synopsis of the British flora.

As in other writings, Ray embraced practical aspects of the subject, considering the techniques of propagation, seed sowing, and curing plant diseases. After this comprehensive introduction Ray commenced his systematic survey of the flora according to his taxonomic principles. The first, relatively short sections dealt with lower plants, which had become familiar to Ray only at a late stage in his career. He relied primarily on reports of other botanists for this section. In the books on flowering plants his surveys were most successful when dealing with clearly delimited families, or where generic differences were obvious. Herbaceous families formed the core of the two-volume work, trees appearing at the end of the second volume. This group was no longer neglected, and Ray even considered the numerous cultivated varieties of apple and pear.

Whatever the limitations, Ray attempted to carry out his scheme rigorously, taking no shortcuts. For each species, besides nomenclature and morphological description, he gave details of habitat, distribution, and medicinal uses. Illustration was completely abandoned. In previous herbals illustrations had been so defective and derivative that they were the source of considerable confusion. Ray probably recognized that adequate illustration of such a comprehensive treatise was beyond his technical and financial resources. The third, supplementary volume of the Historic published shortly before Ray’s death, attempted to synthesize the considerable botanical literature which had appeared since the publication of the original volumes. Ray compiled material from a wide range of sources, from descriptions of exotic floras to botanical garden catalogs from Amsterdam and Nuremberg. By this time he was entirely a compiler, although his experience as a field botanist greatly improved the quality of this work. The enormous size of the supplement indicates the difficulties involved in single-handed attempts to deal with the growing avalanche of botanical literature.

Apart from the tables on animals prepared for John Wilkins, Willughby died without publishing anything of his share of the systema naturae. He bequeathed to Ray miscellaneous notes which required considerable elaboration before publication was possible. Ray recognized an obligation to complete Willughby s survey of the animal kingdom in addition to his own enormous botanical undertakings. He had already served an apprenticeship in zoology at Cambridge and had assisted Willughby with the table of animals used by Wilkins. More important were the lists of English birds and fishes included in Ray’s Collection of English Words (1673). Although he published works on fishes and birds under Willughby’s name, Raven’s researches leave no doubt that Ray was primarily responsible for their composition.

Ornithology was the first topic completed by Ray (Omithologiae, 1676). English ornithology had been given an auspicious inception by William Turner in the sixteenth century; but little more was achieved, as witnessed by the inadequate lists compiled by Merret and Charleton, Ray’s contemporaries. Throughout his travels Ray had made ornithological notes; subsequently such naturalists as Sir Thomas Browne sent him notes on the birds of their localities. Ray and Willughby accounted for at least 230 descriptions in Ornithologia; but in order to increase comprehensiveness, it was necessary to draw upon Continental authorities for both text and illustrations. Hence the survey was very uneven in quality. An important feature of this work was Ray’s pioneering attempt to classify birds according to habitat and anatomy. As in plant taxonomy, he was suspicious of divisions based on single criteria. The basic groups were ecological—land and water birds. Land birds were divided according to beak characteristics, while water birds were placed in two groups, waders and swimmers. Lower categories were decided by diet or beak or foot characteristics. Ray’s descriptions concentrated on plumage, with notes on variation according to age or sex; occasionally behavior patterns were described.

Ray’s next project was completion of the Historia piscium (1686), a task analogous to the ornithology. It is probable that Willughby left relatively little material; but Ray’s travels had furnished considerable information, including descriptions of Mediterranean fishes. Appended to his Collection of English Words were extensive lists of English freshwater and marine fish. He had also contributed two relevant papers to the Philosophical Transactions: an account of the dissection of a porpoise (1671) and considerations of the function and anatomy of swim bladders (1675). One of Ray’s main problems in completing the Historia piscium was incorporating the considerable body of ichthyological literature which had been accumulating since the Renaissance. As in other treatises, Ray began with introductory chapters on the definition, anatomy, physiology, and classification of fish. Cetaceans were included despite recognition of their mammalian affinities, but invertebrate aquatic creatures were omitted. At the highest level Aristotle’s classification was adopted, fin structure providing the main criterion for designating the minor divisions. An appealing feature of this book is the illustrations, which were more numerous than in any of his other works, because of the generous financial assistance from members of the Royal Society.

With the good progress of this zoological work, Ray was encouraged by Tancred Robinson to draw his material into a comprehensive systema naturae, summarizing the contents of longer treatises along the lines of the botanical Synopsis. The systema naturae was undertaken somewhat reluctantly by Ray, the manuscripts on fishes and birds lying idle until published posthumously by Derham as Synopsis avium et piscium (1713). Not only were descriptions condensed and slight emendations of the classification made, but a considerable number of new species, primarily of birds, were included. This supports the general impression that the work on fishes was undertaken out of duty rather than enthusiasm.

The Synopsis animalium quadrupedum et serpentini (1693) was published promptly, for no general histories of these groups were undertaken by Ray. Here the debt to Willughby was minimal, thus vindicating Ray’s abilities as an anatomist and zoologist. Introductory essays dealt with general issues; the Cartesians were attacked for accepting animal automatism; Redi was supported for his opposition to spontaneous generation; the Platonist doctrine of Plastic Spirit was adopted and the treatment of embryology inclined toward ovism. Classification was the outstanding part of the introduction. Aristotle’s division into “blooded” and “bloodless” was maintained; the former were divided according to respiratory mechanism, cetaceans being firmly placed with the mammals. For the minor divisions foot types were basic, but reference was also made to internal anatomy and general morphology. Classification of the invertebrates was unsatisfactory, but at least Ray attempted to avoid large amorphous groups.

The culmination of Ray’s zoological work was the study of invertebrates, which resulted in his posthumous Historia insectorum (1710). On this topic Ray was dealing with virtually virgin territory. The only previous substantial work on the subject was produced a century before by the English naturalist Thomas Moffett. But the potentialities of entomology in particular had been displayed in Ray’s generation by the microscopists and the detailed study of spiders made by Ray’s friend Lister (1678). Ray and Willughby had made parallel investigations into gall insects that had been reported in a series of letters to the Philosophical Transactions. However, botanical work prevented Ray from beginning serious work on the history of lower animals until 1690, but the labor was pleasant and the helpers numerous. Despite great progress the text was incomplete at his death; and in the absence of any willing editor, it was published as Ray left it, with the addition of a scheme of classification previously published as Methodus insectorum (1705). Although it was ostensibly concerned with all “bloodless” creatures, only insects were considered in detail. More specifically, only moths, butterflies, bees, wasps, and ichneumon flies were described in the comprehensive form intended by Ray. On each of these groups Ray considerably improved on Moffett, whose bias lay in a similar direction.

As indicated above, most of Ray’s publications were concerned directly with taxonomy. He was, however, responsible for some more general works, many of which had considerable celebrity. Most had an obvious relationship to his taxonomic labors. Observations Topographical and Physiological (1673), an account of his Continental journeys, was the vehicle for the “Catalogue of Foreign Plants.” Likewise, Ray’s Collection of English Words (1673), of lasting interest for its dialect records, contained lists of English fishes and birds, as well as accounts of mining and industrial practices. The long travel diary of Rauwolf, and a number of other brief accounts of the Middle East, were published as A Collection of Curious Travels and Voyages (1693), in order to draw attention to the botanical observations contained in these writings.

None of these works compared in influence or significance with the two theologically oriented books, Physico-Theological Discourses and The Wisdom of God. The intensity of Ray’s conviction that science served a religious end is apparent from the preface to the Cambridge catalog, in which he declared, “There is for a free man no occupation more worthy and delightful than to contemplate the beauteous works of nature and honour the infinite wisdom and goodness of God.” Accordingly, his students were admonished to cultivate natural history as a means to mental satisfaction and bodily exercise. In the preface to the ornithology the potential religious value of the study of birds was proffered as his reason for taking up the incomplete work of Willughby. For Ray, following the Platonists’ lead, it was necessary to evolve a system of nature which would reinforce man’s conviction of the power of providence and guarantee against the incursions of materialism.

Miscellaneous Discourses Concerning the Dissolution and Changes of the World (1692), revised and entitled Three Physico-Theological Discourses within a year, exposed Ray’s considerable knowledge of paleontology and geology. On the much-debated issue of “formed stones,” he supported the view that they were generally organic remains, one of the results of divine intervention at the Deluge. In an attempt to explain the placing of fossils, John Woodward and William Whiston had evolved speculative cosmogonies giving natural explanations for the Deluge. Consideration of the Deluge and Creation, in an attempt to arrive at scientific theories reconcilable with the Scriptures, was the dominant feature of the Discourses.

Even more popular and general was The Wisdom of God (1691), a phrase that often appears in Ray’s prefaces. This work went through four editions, greatly expanded and revised by Ray himself. After his death its popularity continued, and it formed the model for genre for theology literature. Ray’s own text was derived from notes used at Cambridge that were heavily indebted to the Cambridge Plationists, especially More and Cudworth in general conception and philosophical outlook. But in the systematic survey of nature, no author was better equipped than Ray. The text, beginning with the solar system, passing through the theory of matter, geology, and the vegetable and animal kingdoms, and ending with a detailed study of human anatomy and physiology, gave Ray an ideal opportunity to display his scientific virtuosity. The great bulk of the material was drawn from his own experience, which extended from geology to anatomy, a spectrum which could be matched by few scientists and none of his imitators. The Wisdom of God provided an epitome of his scientific achievement in the religious perspective, which furnished Ray’s basic motivation. For Ray, to be a naturalist was to acknowledge that “Divinity is my profession”(Further Correspondence,p. 163).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. Original Works. For a complete list of Ray’s works, see G. L. Keynes, John Ray, a Bibliography (London, 1951). Ray’s major works are Catalogus plantarum circa Cantabrigiam nascentium (Cambridge, 1660),; Appendix ad catalogum plantarum … (Cambridge, 1663); Catalogus plantarum Angliae et insularum adjacentium (London, 1670; 2nd ed., 1677); Francisci Willughbeii … ornithologiae (London, 1676; English ed., 1678); Methodus plantarum (London, 1682), rev. ed., Methodous emendata (London, 1703); Historia piscium (Oxford, 1686), written with willughby; Historia plantarum, 3 vols. (London, 1686–1704); Synopsis methodican stirpium Britannicarum (London,1690; 2nd ed., 1696; 3rd ed., 1724, with facs. repr., London,1973); The Wisdom of God (London, 1691; enl. eds.m, 1692, 1701,1704); Miscellaneous Discourses Concerning the Dissolution and Changes of the World (London, 1692), rev. as Three Physico-Theological Discourses (1693, 1713); Synopsis antimalium quadrupedum et serpentini (London, 1693); Historia insectorum (London, 1710); and Synopsis avium er piscium (London, 1713). Contributions to the Royal Society are listed by Keynes.

Various ediors hace assembled poor eds. of Ray’s correspondence: Philosophical Letters. W. Derharm, ed. (London, 1718) Correspondence of John Ray,E. Lankester, ed. (London, 1848); and Further Correspondence, R. T. Gunther, ed. (London, 1928).

II. Secondary Literature. The main older source is W. Derham, Select Remains (London, 1760),repr. as Memorials of John Ray (London, 1846). Also valuable is R. Pulteney, Sketches of the Progress of Botany,1 (London, 1790), 189–281. All other sources are surpassed by C. E. Raven,John Ray His Life and Works (Cambridge, 1942; 2nd ed., with minor addition, 1950).A useful study of Ray’s work on plant taxtonomy is D. C. Gunawardena, “Stdies in the Biological Works of John Ray” (unpub, M. Sc. diss., Univ. of London, 1932). On this subject see Synopsis methodica stirpium Britannicarum,” introduction to the facs. ed. of the 3rd. ed. of Synopsis methodica … (1973).

Charles Webster