John Ray, whom Haller describes as the greatest botanist in the memory of man, and whose writings on animals are pronounced by Cuvier to be the foundation of all modern zoology, was born on the 29th of November, 1628, at Black Notley, near Braintree, in Essex. His father was a blacksmith, who availed himself of the advantages of a free grammar school at Black Notley to bestow upon his son a liberal education. John was designed for holy orders; and was accordingly entered at Catherine Hall, Cambridge, in his sixteenth year. He subsequently removed to Trinity, of which college he was elected a Fellow, in the same year with the celebrated Isaac Barrow. In 1651 he was appointed Greek Lecturer of his college; and afterwards Mathematical Lecturer and Humanity Reader.

In the midst of his professional occupations Ray appears to have devoted himself to that course of observation of the works of nature, which was afterwards to constitute the business and pleasure of his life, and upon which his enduring reputation was to be built. In 1660 he published his ‘Catalogus Plantarum circa Cantabrigiam nascentium,’ which work he states to be the result of ten years of research. He must, therefore, have become a naturalist in the best sense of the word—he must have observed as well as read—at the period when he was struggling for university honours, and obtaining them in company with some of the most eminent persons of his own day. Before the publication of his catalogue, he had visited many parts of England and Wales, for the purpose chiefly of collecting their native plants; and his Itineraries, which were first published in 1760, under the title off ‘Select Remains of the learned John Ray,’ show that he was a careful and diligent observer of every matter that could enlarge his understanding and correct his taste. His principal companion in his favourite studies was his friend and pupil, Francis Willughby.

In December, 1660, Ray was ordained Deacon and Priest at the same time. But the chances of preferment in the church of England, which his admirable talents and learning, as well as the purity of his life and the genuine warmth of his piety, would probably have won for him, were at once destroyed by his honest and inflexible resolution not to subscribe to the conditions required by the Act of Uniformity of 1662, by which divines were called upon to swear that the oath entitled the Solemn League and Covenant was not binding upon those who had taken it. Ray was in consequence deprived of his fellowship. The affection of his pupil, Willughby, relieved him from the embarrassment which might have been a consequence of this misfortune. The two friends from this time appear to have dedicated themselves almost wholly to the study of natural history. They travelled upon the Continent for three years, from 1663 to 1666; and during the remainder of Willughby’s life, which unfortunately was terminated in 1672, their time was principally occupied in observations which had for their object to examine and to register the various productions of nature, upon some method which should obviate the difficulty of those arbitrary and fanciful classifications which had prevailed up to their day. In the preface to his first botanical attempt, the Catalogue of Cambridge Plants, Ray describes the obstacles which he found in the execution of such a work;—he had no guide to consult, and he had to form a method of arrangement, solely by his own sagacity and patience. At that period, as he says in his ‘Wisdom of God in the Creation,’ “different colour, or multiplicity of leaves in the flower, and the like accidents, were sufficient to constitute a specific difference.” From a conversation with Ray a short time before his death, Derham has described the object which the two friends had in their agreeable but laborious pursuits. “These two gentlemen, finding the history of nature very imperfect, had agreed between themselves, before their travels beyond sea, to reduce the several tribes of things to a method; and to give accurate descriptions of the several species, from a strict view of them.” That Ray entered upon his task, however perplexing it might be, with the enthusiastic energy of a man really in love with his subject, we cannot doubt. “Willughby,” says Derham, “prosecuted his design with as great application as if he had been to get his bread thereby.” The good sense of Ray saw distinctly the right path in such an undertaking. There is a passage in his ‘Wisdom of God,’ which beautifully exhibits his own conception of the proper character of a naturalist: “Let it not suffice us to be book-learned, to read what others have written, and to take upon trust more falsehood than truth. But let us ourselves examine things as we have opportunity, and converse with nature as well as books. Let us endeavour to promote and increase this knowledge, and make new discoveries; not so much distrusting our own parts or despairing of our own abilities, as to think that our industry can add nothing to the invention of our ancestors, or correct any of their mistakes. Let us not think that the bounds of science are fixed like Hercules’ pillars, and inscribed with a ne plus ultra. Let us not think we have done when we have learnt what they have delivered to us. The treasures of nature are inexhaustible. Here is employment enough for the vastest parts, the most indefatigable industries, the happiest opportunities, the most prolix and undisturbed vacancies.” It is not difficult to imagine the two friends encouraging each other in their laborious career by sentiments such as these; which are as worthy to be held in remembrance now that we are reaping the full advantage of their labours, and those of their many illustrious successors, as in the days when natural history was, for the most part, a tissue of extravagant fables and puerile conceits.

In 1667 Ray was admitted a Fellow of the Royal Society; and he executed, about that time, a translation into Latin of his friend Bishop Wilkins’ work, on a philosophical and universal language. In 1670 he published the first edition of his ‘Catalogue of English Plants;’ and in 1672 appeared his ‘Collection of English Proverbs;’ which he probably took up as a relaxation from his more systematic pursuits. In this year he suffered the irreparable loss of his friend Willughby. The history of letters presents us with few more striking examples of the advantages to the world, as well as to the individuals themselves, of such a cordial union for a great object. The affection of Ray for Willughby was of the noblest kind. He became the guardian and tutor of his children; and he prepared his posthumous works for publication, with additions from his own pen, for which he claimed no credit, with a diligence and accuracy which showed that he considered the reputation of his friend as the most sacred of all trusts. In 1673, being in his forty-fifth year, Ray married. Willughby had left him an annuity of £60. He had three daughters. During the remainder of his long life, which reached to his 77th year, he resided in or near his native village, living contentedly, as a layman, upon very humble means, but indefatigably contributing to the advancement of natural history, and directing the study of it to the highest end,—the proof of the wisdom and goodness of the great Author of Nature.

The most celebrated of Ray’s botanical publications is his ‘Synopsis Methodica Stirpium Britannicarum.’ Sir James Smith, in a memoir of Ray, in Rees’s EncyclopÆdia, declares that of all the systematical and practical Floras of any country, the second edition of Ray’s Synopsis is the most perfect. The same writer, in the Transactions of the LinnÆan Society, vol. iv., says of this Synopsis, “he examined every plant recorded in his work, and even gathered most of them himself. He investigated their synonyms with consummate accuracy; and if the clearness and precision of other authors had equalled his, he would scarcely have committed an error.” Ray’s ‘Methodus Plantarum Nova,’ first published in 1682, has been superseded by other systems; but the accuracy of his observations, the precision of his language, and the clearness of his general views, tended greatly to the advancement of botanical science. His ‘Historia Plantarum,’ in three vols. folio, a vast compilation, including all the botanical knowledge of his day, is still in use, as a book of reference, by those who especially devote themselves to this study.

The zoological works of Ray have had a more direct and permanent influence upon the advancement of natural history, than his botanical. Amongst his zoological productions, the best authorities are agreed that we ought to include the greater part of those edited by him as the posthumous works of his friend Willughby. They are conceived upon the same principle as his own History of Plants, and are arranged upon a nearly similar plan; whilst the style of each is undoubtedly the same. In the original division of their great subject, Ray had chosen the vegetable kingdom, and Willughby the animal; and Ray, therefore, may have felt himself compelled to forego some of his own proper claims, that he might raise a complete monument to the memory of his friend. The Ornithology appeared in 1676; the History of Fishes in 1686. Ray, however, prepared several very important zoological works, of his entire claims to which there can be no doubt. The chief of these are, ‘Synopsis methodica animalium quadrupedum et serpentini generis,’ 1693, which he published during his life; ‘Synopsis methodica avium,’ and ‘Synopsis methodica piscium,’ edited by Derham, and published in 1713; and ‘Historia insectorum,’ printed at the expense of the Royal Society, in 1710. “The peculiar character of the zoological works of Ray,” says Cuvier, “consists in clearer and more rigorous methods than those of any of his predecessors, and applied with more constancy and precision.” The divisions which he has introduced into the classes of quadrupeds and birds have been followed by the English naturalists, almost to our own day; and one finds very evident traces of his system of birds in LinnÆus, in Brisson, in Buffon, and in all the authors who are occupied with this class of animals. The Ornithology of Salerne is little more than a translation from the Synopsis; and Buffon has extracted from Willughby almost all the anatomical part of his History of Birds. Daubenton and Hauy have translated the History of Fishes, in great part, for their Dictionary of Ichthyology, in the ‘EncyclopÉdie Methodique.’

‘The Wisdom of God in the Creation’ is the work upon which the popular fame of Ray most deservedly rests. It is a book which perhaps more than any other in our language unites the precision of science to the warmth of devotion. It is delightful to see the ardour with which this good man dedicated himself to the observation of nature entering into his views of another state of existence, when our knowledge shall be made perfect, and the dim light with which we grope amidst the beautiful and wondrous objects by which we are surrounded, shall brighten into complete day. “It is not likely,” says he, “that eternal life shall be a torpid and inactive state, or that it shall consist only in an uninterrupted and endless act of love; the other faculties shall be employed as well as the will, in actions suitable to, and perfective of their natures: especially the understanding, the supreme faculty of the soul, which chiefly differs in us from brute beasts, and makes us capable of virtue and vice, of rewards and punishments, shall be busied and employed in contemplating the works of God, and observing the divine art and wisdom manifested in the structure and composition of them; and reflecting upon their Great Architect the praise and glory due to him. Then shall we clearly see, to our great satisfaction and admiration, the ends and uses of those things, which here were either too subtle for us to penetrate and discover, or too remote and unaccessible for us to come to any distinct view of, viz. the planets and fixed stars; those illustrious bodies, whose contents and inhabitants, whose stores and furniture we have here so longing a desire to know, as also their mutual subserviency to each other. Now the mind of man being not capable at once to advert to more than one thing, a particular view and examination of such an innumerable number of vast bodies, and the great multitude of species, both of animate and inanimate beings, which each of them contains, will afford matter enough to exercise and employ our minds, I do not say to all eternity, but to many ages, should we do nothing else^[10].”

In addition to his ‘Wisdom of God,’ Ray published three ‘Physico-Theological Discourses, concerning the Chaos, Deluge, and Dissolution of the World.’ “This last presents to us,” to use the words of Cuvier, “a system of geology as plausible as any of those which had appeared at this epoch, or for a long time afterwards.” He also printed a work expressly of a theological character, ‘A Persuasive to a Holy Life.’

Ray died on the 17th January, 1705, at his native place of Black Notley, whither he had retired, at Midsummer, 1679, as he himself expressed, “for the short pittance of time he had yet to live in this world.” His memory has been done justice to by his countrymen. A most interesting commemoration of him was held in London, on the 29th Nov., 1828, being the two hundredth anniversary of his birth.