Opinions
From Darwin - a life in science by John Gribbin and Michael White.
Ray, John (1627-1705) British naturalist, born Black Notley, Essex. John Ray was one of the most significant
natural scientists of his time and was known as both ‘the Father of Natural History’ and the ‘Aristotle
of England’. Ray made the first notable attempts to produce a system of classification of plants and animals based on
structural characters such as numbers of petals, length of tail etc. He was also the first to use the word
‘species’ in its scientific sense. An annotated copy of his major work, the Historia Plantarum is still used as
a form of catalogue to Sir Hans Sloane’s botanical collections in The Natural History Museum. The first significant
attempt to produce a systematic classification of plants and animals - a taxonomy -was made by the English naturalist John
Ray, who lived from 1627 to 1705. He went up to Cambridge in 1644, and was a student during the turmoil of the English
Civil War. After graduating he became a Fellow of Trinity College, trained as a clergyman and was eventually ordained in
1660. But he lost his position at Cambridge in 1662, following the restoration of the monarchy, when he refused to sign an
oath promising conformity to the established doctrines of the Church. As far as natural history was concerned this proved a
blessing in disguise. After losing his job, Ray was supported by an affluent friend, Francis Willughby, who shared his
interest in natural history. They toured Europe together, studying the flora and fauna and collecting specimens, and on
their return to England began to collaborate in publishing an account of what they had found. Their plan was that Ray would
categorise and describe the plants, while Willughby would be responsible for the animals. In 1672, however, Willughby died
at the age of 37, and the whole task fell upon Ray’s shoulders. For several years he stayed as tutor to
Willughby’s children, supported by a legacy from Willughby and marrying the governess of the children. In 1678,
however, he and his wife returned to Ray’s childhood home in Essex, where he lived for the rest of his life. Ray
published an enormous amount of material, most of it under his own name but some with Willughby listed as author or
co-author, although he cannot have made much of a contribution before his untimely death. In Ornithology, first published
in 1676, they described birds, and grouped them together in terms of a classification based on their structural features
and habits - land and water birds, birds with curved beaks and birds with straight beaks, fruit eaters and insect eaters,
and so on They identified individual species and gave them names, both English and (usually) Latin. In his Natural History
of Plants, a three volume epic, which appeared between 1686 and 1704, Ray came up with a definition of just what a species
is. ‘After long and considerable investigation’ he wrote in the first volume, ‘no surer criterion for
determining species has occurred to me than the distinguishing features that perpetuate themselves in propagation from
seed’. In other words, pea plants produce seeds which give rise to other pea plants, oak trees produce seeds which
give rise to other oak trees, and although there may be differences between the offspring and their parents, these
differences are never enough to justify the offspring being called a different species. There is natural variation within
the individual members of a species. Ray was also a supporter of the idea that fossils are the petrified remains of dead
animals and plants, a notion that was not generally accepted until nearly a hundred years later. Ray’s classification
covered more than 18,000 species of plant, describing their appearance, where they lived, and general features of the life
cycles of the plants. It paved the way for the work of Carolus Linnaeus, probably the most famous of all taxonomists, in
the eighteenth century.
Gilbert White in The Natural History of Selborne1771
"Foreign systematics are, I observe, much too vague in their specific differences; which are almost universally
constituted by one or two particular marks, the rest of the description running in general terms. But our countryman, the
excellent Mr Ray, is the only describer who conveys some precise idea in every term or word, maintaining his superiority
over his followers and imitators inspite of the advantage of fresh discoveries and modern information"
http://www.biologie.uni-hamburg.de/b-online/e01/01e.htm#ray
The position of the first scientist to use flower properties as features of classification is due to the British researcher
J. RAY (lat.: RAJUS, 1628 - 1705). He drew a clear line between mono- and dicotyledons after closely examining plant
embryos. He did adopt the terminology from J. JUNGIUS and he additionally did influence C. V. LINNÉ. RAY established
six rules (1703) which belong to the fundamental principles of plant systematics till today:
http://www.users.dircon.co.uk/~wheldwes/bot.html
Another figure from the late 17th century of great significance is John Ray, sometimes known as 'The English Linnaeus'.
Some claim he was even more original than Linnaeus being a remarkable field naturalist as well as a classifier and
cataloguer, whereas Linnaeus was pre-eminent as a classifier only. Ray was prolific in other subjects as well as botany but
here I would like to particularly draw your attention to his greatest work, the Historia Plantarum in three enormous folio
volumes, 1686-1704, a convincing tribute to his genius as a systematic botanist and possibly the largest botanical
undertaking by one man.
Review of Anna Pavord's Naming of Names
Along with Theophrastus, Pavord's highest praise goes to Englishman John Ray, who in 1696 coined the term "botany". He
provided six rules by which to categorize plants, not only the ones familiar to him in England, but the spectacular finds
being brought from distant lands. Others had previously insisted on classifying plants by use, which was entirely
artificial, or more helpfully by leaf or seed form, but it was Ray who put botany on its first real foundation by noting
the distinction of seeds that sprout with one leaf or two (we still classify monocotyledon and dicotyledon). He had made
scientific order ascendant in his field. He knew he was part of an ongoing process, predicting that future botanists would
look back and "our proudest discoveries will seem slight, obvious, almost worthless." He might have been right, but seen as
a tribute to their efforts, The Naming of Names shows how these discoveries, achieved over the centuries by curious,
devoted, and fallible plantsmen, have brought us to our current understandings. Pavord's book essentially ends with Ray,
barely mentioning the recent advances that have been made with DNA testing; such tests have confirmed much of what was
eventually realized as the evolutionary tree, but have upset other parts as well. It has been a long botanical trip, and
Pavord's deep scholarship and inclusion of gorgeous illustrations make the journey enormous fun.
http://encarta.msn.com/text_761576239___8/Classification.html
Animal classification also advanced in the 16th century. French naturalist Pierre Belon extensively studied and catalogued
birds. He was the first to use adaptation to habitat to divide birds into such groups as aquatic birds, wading birds, birds
of prey, perching birds, and land birds, categories still used informally today. In the 17th century, English naturalist
John Ray was the first to apply the character weighting method to structural features in animals. He used key
characteristics, such as the shape and size of the bird beak, to classify birds.
http://diglib1.amnh.org/articles/sci_names/sci_names.pdf
Over the past two centuries, Linnaeus's system has been revised in some substantial ways. For example, the Linnaean system
originally used the number and type of reproductive parts in plants for dividing them into different categories, or taxa.
That approach resulted in some very awkward and "unnatural" groupings and was eventually replaced by one made popular by
the English naturalist John Ray. Ray's system looks at morphological attributes from all parts of an organism in all stages
of its development to draw conclusions about how to group it. But both Linnaeus's system of hierarchical classification and
his binomial nomenclature are still in use today, and Linnaeus is generally credited as the founder of modern taxonomy.
http://users.skynet.be/spinnen/OldBooks/Linnaeus/linnaeus.html
Mostly because of its artificiality, but in part because of its explicit nature -- one opponent called it "loathsome
harlotry" -- the specific details of Linnaeus's plant classification have largely been abandoned. Later systems of
classification largely follow John Ray's practice of using morphological evidence from all parts of the organism in all
stages of its development. What has survived of the Linnean system is its method of hierarchical classification and custom
of binomial nomenclature.
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