OTHER SYSTEMS 39 



coveries of Caesalpinus have escaped all observation, whilst 

 everything has stupidly been ascribed to Ray" (Smith's Corre- 

 spondence of Linnaeus, ii. p. 280 i). This rather severe criticism 

 does not, however, seem to have prejudiced Haller against Ray, 

 for in the former's well-known Bibliotheca Botanica (vol. i. p. 500, 

 1771), in speaking of the rapid progress of Botany in the latter 

 part of the seventeenth century, he adds " Mutta pars horum 

 incrementormn debetur Johanni Ray. Vir plus et modestus, 

 V. D. M. maximus ab hominum memoria botanicus, ea felicitate 

 usus est, tit totos quinquaginta annos dilecto studio ei licuerit 

 impendere" 



Ray's system also became more popular than that of Morison, 

 and was in general use in England until the latter half of the 

 eighteenth century, when it was gradually superseded by the 

 Linnean method which was first applied to English botany in 

 Dr J. Hill's Flora Britannica (1760). 



Ray was never engaged in teaching any branch of natural 

 history. Had there been, in his day, a Chair of Botany in the 

 University of Cambridge, he would, no doubt, have occupied it: 

 however, the professorship was not established until 1724, twenty 

 years after his death. He might very well have been chosen to 

 succeed Morison at Oxford : but, for some unstated reason, the 

 professorship there was kept in abeyance for nearly forty years 

 after the death of Morison. 



As has been explained, Morison and Ray revived the for- 

 gotten labours of Cesalpino. The immediate result of the 

 publication of their systems was to stimulate their colleagues 

 on the continent of Europe to a noble emulation : there was 

 scarcely a botanist of note who did not elaborate a system of 

 his own. After suffering from too little work in the direction 

 of classification, botany now began to suffer from too much : 

 one after the other, system followed system in rapid succession. 

 Those, for instance, of Christopher Knaut (1687), Paul Hermann 

 (1690), Boerhaave (1710), Rivinus (1690 1711), Ruppius (1718), 

 Christian Knaut (1716); and, in France, of Tournefort (1694, 

 1700), and of Magnol (1720). Then came the Methodus Sexualis 

 of Linnaeus (Systema Naturae, 1735). The effect of the general 

 adoption of Linnaeus' most useful but artificial method was the 



