CUVIER AND A. D. THOTJARS. 



107 



distract Ray from his earlier theological studies. In his 

 treatise entitled ' The Wisdom of God manifested in the 

 Works of the Creation/ he has well shown how these 

 studies could be combined. He had conceived the design 

 of this work in his youth, and laid its foundation in his 

 lectures at Cambridge, but it was not fully developed, 

 nor published till 1691, in 1 vol. 8vo. It is an ex- 

 position of the admirable care with which Providence 

 has disposed all beings for the functions they have to 

 perform in the great scheme of the universe, and has fur- 

 nished each in suitable degree with all that may be 

 required for its preservation and support. 



The study of nature is represented as a pious duty, 

 and the author endeavours to show the probability that 

 such studies will become part of the occupations of an- 

 other life. 



The lectures and sermons, formerly delivered at Cam- 

 bridge, also afforded the groundwork of his ' Three Phy- 

 sico-Theological Discourses,' published in 1 692, and the 

 subjects of which were ' Chaos,' the ' Deluge,' and the 

 ' End of the World.' These discourses present a system 

 of geology quite as plausible as any which had previously 

 appeared, or was produced for a long time afterwards. 



These two works have long been held in much esteem 

 in England, and have passed through many editions. The 

 former has also been translated into several languages. 

 It was printed in Erench, at Utrecht, in 1714, in 8vo, and 

 the tweKth English edition appeared in London in 1759. 



Ray also made a collection of English Proverbs, which 

 was one of his earliest works, and perhaps the most gene- 

 rally popular of all in his own country. It was composed 

 in 1669, but was not published till 1672 or 1673. He 

 also made a collection of English words in little use, or 

 peculiar to certain districts. 



All his works on natural history are in Latin; they 

 are composed in an unaffected style, and are less cum- 

 bered than those of his successors with a multitude of 

 new terms, so burdensome to the memory. Wilkins re- 

 quested him to translate into Latin his ' Real Character,' 



