John Ray

John Ray (29 November 1627 – 17 January 1705) was an English naturalist, sometimes referred to as the father of English natural history.^[1] Ray was the son of a village blacksmith who got to Cambridge University on a scholarship. This was in 1644, when the Puritans were making war against Charles I. When he got his bachelor's degree in 1648, he continued as a Fellow of Trinity College.

Ray was a Protestant dissenter who had accepted the return of Charles II. He was ordained as a priest of the Church of England, in London in 1660. By then, Charles II insisted that all priests sign an affadavit against the Puritan party. The Act of Uniformity of 1662 made the Book of Common Prayer compulsory in religious services, which was opposed by those of Puritan beliefs. Ray would not sign the affidavit, so he was forced to resign his Fellowship, and could not work as a priest.

Ray returned to his native village of Black Notley, near Braintree in Essex. After Ray joined up with a former student, Francis Willughby, the pair spent three years in continental Europe, discovering what the latest scientific ideas were.^[2] When he returned to England in spring 1666, he joined the new Royal Society, and devoted himself to the study of natural history. His most important scientific works were supported financially by the Royal Society, whose President at a critical time in the 1680s was Samuel Pepys.

Ray published important works on plants, animals, and natural theology. His classification of plants in his Historia Plantarum, was an important step towards modern taxonomy. Ray rejected the system by which species were classified according to an either/or type system. Instead he classified plants by observation according to similarities and differences. Thus he advanced scientific empiricism against the deductive rationalism of the scholastics. He was the first person to give a biological definition of the term species.^[3]

"Ray sweeps away the litter of mythology and fable... and always insists upon accuracy of observation and description and the testing of every new discovery".^[4]p10

1. ↑ Robert W.T. Gunther (ed) 1928. Further Correspondence of John Ray. Ray Society, London. p16
2. ↑ Green, John C. 1959. The death of Adam: evolution and its impact on western thought. Ames, Iowa: Iowa University Press, p1-3.
3. ↑ Historia plantarum generalis 1686, Tome I, Libr. I, Chap. XX, page 40 (Quoted in Mayr, Ernst. 1982. The growth of biological thought: diversity, evolution, and inheritance. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press: p256)
4. ↑ Cite error: The named reference Raven was used but no text was provided for refs named (see the help page).