RAY, JOHN. 



RAYNAL, GUILLAUME-THOMAS-FRANCOIS. 



sciences, that they demand a brief notice. His first publication was 

 the ' Catalogue of the Plants growing in the Neighbourhood of Cam- 

 bridge/ which we have already mentioned. This work contains a 

 description of 626 species arranged alphabetically, and accompanied 

 with the synouyms of the principal botanical authors who had pre- 

 ceded him : it ia curious from its being the first production of a man 

 who afterwards attained to such great celebrity, and it exhibits traces 

 of those singular powers of observation which he afterwards so 

 eminently displayed. A Supplement to this Catalogue appeared in 

 1663, and a second in 1685. 



In 1682 appeared his 'Methodus Plantarum Nova,' 1 vol. 8vo, in 

 which he proposed a new method of classifying plants, which when 

 altered and amended, as it subsequently was by himself at a later 

 period, unquestionably formed the basis of that method which, under 

 the name of the system of Jussieu, is generally received at the present 

 day. In the formation of the principal groups into which he divided 

 the vegetable kingdom, Kay derived his characters sometimes from 

 the fruit, sometimes from the flower, and sometimes from other parts 

 of the plant, as each in its turn seemed to offer the most strongly 

 marked points of distinction. He first proposed the division of plants 

 into dicotyledons and monocotyledons. (' Me.thodus Plantarum,' edit. 

 2, p. 2.) He extended these divisions both to trees and herbs, stating 

 that palms differ as much in this respect from other trees as grasses 

 and lilies do from other herbs. Though he made these great disco- 

 veries and improvements, Ray obstinately continued in the old error 

 of separating woody from herbaceous plants, or trees from herbs, and 

 he held a long controversy with Rivinus on this point ; he even went 

 so far as to state that one of these divisions might be distinguished 

 from the other by the presence of buds, which he says are only 

 developed in woody plants. To him is due however the honour of 

 the discovery of the true nature of buds, for he says that they are 

 points at which new annual plants spring up from the old stock; but 

 he stopped short in his discovery in not extending them to herbaceous 

 plants. lil the first edition of the ' Methodus ' he formed twenty-five 

 classes, taking the woody plants first, which he divided into trees and 

 shrubs. In this system he fell into many errors, one of the most 

 glaring of which, as he himself afterwards observed, was the separation 

 of the different species of corn from the other grasses. He subse- 

 quently altered this, and revised the whole arrangement, making 

 thirty -four groups instead of twenty-five; many of which are almost 

 exactly the same as are adopted by botanists of the present day under 

 the name of Natural Orders. 



His arrangement was too far in advance of the knowledge of the day, 

 and the consequence was that it was little appreciated or adopted by 

 his contemporaries and immediate successors, who, instead of improv- 

 ing the arrangement so ably sketched out, set about establishing others 

 on artificial principles, all of which are rapidly sinking into oblivion, 

 while the principles of Ray are tacitly admitted, and many of his 

 fundamental divisions adopted in that beautiful but still imperfect 

 Natural System which has been formed by the labours of Jussieu, 

 Brown, De Candolle, Lindley, and others. 



While he made these important improvements in classification, this 

 great botanist did not neglect the study of species ; his ' Catalogus 

 Plantarum Anglise" first appeared in 1670, arranged alphabetically, 

 and has been the basis of all subsequent Floras of this country. A 

 second edition appeared in 1677, and in 1690 he published a third, 

 entitled ' Synopsis Methodica Stirpium Britannicarum,' which is 

 arranged according to his natural system. Another edition of the 

 'Synopsis ' came out in 1696, and it was again republished by Dillenius 

 in 1724. This work, of which the edition of 1696 is the best, is very 

 accurate. Ray examined every plant described in the work himself, 

 and investigated their synonyms with great care. 



In 1694 he published 'Stirpium Europsearum extra Britannias 

 crescentium Sylloge.' This work contains a description of all those 

 plants which he had himself collected on the Continent, as well as 

 many which had been described by others. The synonyms are here 

 very exact. 



His largest botanical work was a general ' Historia Plantarum,' the 

 first volume of which came out in 1686, fol. ; a second appeared in 

 1688, and a third, which was supplementary, in 1704. In this vast 

 work he collected and arranged all the species of plants which had 

 then been described by botanists; he enumerated 18,625 species. 

 Haller, Sprengel, Adausou, and others speak of this work as being the 

 produce of immense labour, and as containing much learning and acute 

 criticism ; but from its nature it was of course principally a compilation. 



Ray made many researches in vegetable physiology. He published 

 a very interesting paper in the ' Philosophical Transactions ' (No. 68), 

 on the mode of ascent of the sap, and we find many observations on 

 the structure and functions of plants scattered through his various 

 works. In the first volume of the ' Historia Plantarum ' he collected 

 together, under the title of ' De Plantis in Genere,' all the principal 

 discoveries which had been made on the structure and properties of 

 plants by Cesalpin, Grew, Malpighi, and others, as well as by himself ; 

 so that he thus published by far the most complete introduction to 

 botany that had then appeared. 



In zoology Ray ranks almost as high as in botany ; and his works 

 on this subject are even more important, as they still in a great 

 measure preserve their utility. Cuvier says, that " they may be con- 



sidered as the foundation of modern zoology, for naturalists are 

 obliged to consult them every instant, for the purpose of clearing up 

 the difficultiea which they meet with in the works of Linnaeus and his 

 copyists." Mr. Willughby, at the time of his death, left to his friend 

 Ray the task of arranging and publishing the various materials which 

 he had collected for an extensive work on the animal kingdom. Ray 

 exhibited as much zeal as fidelity in the execution of this trust, for 

 he might have called the works partly his own without much injustice, 

 as he had assisted in the first collection of the materials, and had the 

 entire task of arranging and classifying them; besides which, it is 

 easy to observe, as Cuvier had remarked, that the histories of plants 

 and animals are both written by the same hand. The ' Ornithologia ' 

 of Willughby, which was the first part of the work that appeared, 

 was published in 1676, one vol. fol., with seventy-seven plates. An 

 English translation of it, by Ray, appeared the following year. The 

 remaining part, which is the most complete, was the 'Historia 

 Piscium,' and did not come out till 1686, 2 vols. fol. These works 

 contain a great number of new species of birds and fishes, which had 

 been discovered by Willughby and Ray in Germany and Italy, as well 

 as those which had been previously described. Cuvier says, "The 

 fishes of the Mediterranean are described with rare precision, and it is 

 frequently easier to find species in Willughby than in Linnaeus." _Many 

 of the figures in these works are original, and very good. 



Ray published several works of his own on zoology. He undertook 

 to form a classical arrangement of the whole animal kingdom, as he 

 had of the vegetable; and, in 1693, he published his 'Synopsis 

 Methodica Animalium, Quadrupedum, et Serpentini Generis,' hi 1 vol. 

 8vo. Similar volumes on birds and fishes were also prepared by him, 

 but were not published till after his death, by Dr. Derham, in 1713. 

 The two last are principally abridgments of the great works published 

 under the name of Willughby. He also left an admirable history of 

 insects, which was likewise published by Dr. Derham, at the expense 

 of the Royal Society ; and contains an appendix on beetles, by Dr. 

 Lister. The most important character of the zoological works of 

 Ray is the precise and clear method of classification which he adopted. 

 The primary divisions of his system were founded on the structure of 

 the heart and organs of respiration. His arrangement of the classes 

 of quadrupeds and birds has been followed by many naturalists. 

 Both Linnaeus and Buffon borrowed largely from the works of Ray. 

 Buffon extracted from Willughby's ' Ornithology,' almost all the ana- 

 tomical part of his history of birds ; and Cuvier says that the ' Diction- 

 naire d'Ichthyologie,' by Daubeuton and Haiiy, in the ' Encyclopedic 

 Me"thodique,' consists in great part of translations from Ray's works 

 on fishes. 



In addition to his numerous scientific writings, Ray composed 

 several works on divinity and other subjects: the best known of these 

 are, ' A Collection of Proverbs,' which came out in 1672, and went 

 through several editions ; ' The Wisdom of God in the Creation,' 

 1690, which also had an extensive sale; 'A Persuasion to a Holy 

 Life,' 1700; and three ' Physico-Theological Discourses concerning 

 Chaos, the Deluge, and the Dissolution of the World,' 1692. 



(Life, by Dr. Derham ; Haller's Bibl. JBot. ; Life, by Cuvier and Du 

 Petit Thouars, in the Biog. Univer. ; and Life, by Sir J. E. Smith, in 

 Rees's Cyclop.) 



RAYMUND LULLY. [LULLY.] 



RAYNA'L, GUILLA'UME THOMA'S FRANCOIS, was born in 

 1711, at St. Geniez, in the province of Rouergue, now the department 

 de 1'Aveyron. He studied in the Jesuits' College at Pe'ze'nas, and took 

 orders as a priest, but afterwards left the Jesuits, and came to Paris, 

 where he was made assistant-curate of the parish of St. Sulpice, in 1747- 

 It is stated, in the 'Biographic Uuiverselle,' that he was dismissed 

 from the service of that parish in consequence of simoniacal practices ; 

 among others for exacting illegal fees for performing the office of the 

 dead. He next turned to literary pursuits, and having made himself 

 acquainted with several influential men, he became editor of the 

 ' Mercure de France.' He also wrote ' Histoire du Stathouderat,' 

 12mo, 1748, which has been reprinted several times. It is a super- 

 ficial work, and written in a declamatory style. His 'Histoire du 

 Parlement d'Angleterre ' is equally superficial and inaccurate. From 

 these and his ' Anecdotes Litte"raires,' ' Anecdotes historiques, mili- 

 taires, et politiques,' and other similar light works, he derived a con- 

 siderable profit. At the same time Raynal speculated in mercantile 

 affairs, and, it is said by DtSsessart, in his ' Siecles LitteVaires de la 

 France,' that he employed capital in the slave-trade. At Paris he 

 frequented the society of Helvetius, Holbach, and Madame Geoffrin. 



In 1770 he published his great work, by which he is chiefly known, 

 'Histoire Philosophique des Establissemens des Europeans dans les 

 deux Indes/ 4 vols. 8vo, La Haye, without the author's name. The 

 work was reprinted several times, both in France and out of France, 

 with additions by the author; and although many passages were 

 written in a very violent tone against monarchy, and especially the 

 French monarchy, and against Christianity, the French government 

 allowed the book to circulate undisturbed. In the mean time Rayual 

 travelled in Holland and England, and collected fresh materials for 

 his work, of which he published a new and enlarged edition at Geneva, 

 10 vols. 8vo, 1780, with his name and his portrait. 



The French authorities now took notice of the book. In May 1781, 

 the parliament of Paris condemned it to be burned by the hand of the 



