Heroes of science

by P. Martin Duncan

The first edition was published in 1672, but the work was subsequently much enlarged, and the author may almost be said to have exhausted his subject. From its very nature, delicacy and refinement had often to be dispensed with, but this is evidently not the fault or the aim of the writer. His learning and critical acuteness diffuse light over the whole, and make us overlook the coarse vehicle of our instruction. The first edition of the “Catalogue of English Plants,” already mentioned, came out in 1670, and the second in 1677. Their great author gave his work to the world with that diffidence for which he alone, perhaps, could perceive any just foundation. It was a wonderful book, considering that there was no recognized authority to help the author, who, seeing that there must be some real method in nature, strove to arrange or classify plants by the similarity or dissimilarity of those structures which were of the greatest importance. About this period the health of Mr. Ray seems to have been considerably impaired. He refused a tempting offer to travel again on the Continent, as tutor to three young noblemen; nor could the powerful attractions of Alpine botany, which was then to be studied, overcome that reluctance to leaving home, which arose from a feeble state of body. Indeed, this very reluctance or listlessness is accounted for by the turn which his disorder took, as it terminated in the jaundice. After this depressing complaint had left him, Ray resumed his botanical travels at home with fresh alacrity, visiting the rich stores of the north of England, with a companion named Thomas Willisel, whose name and discoveries he subsequently gratefully commemorated on many occasions. Nothing forms a more striking feature in Ray’s character than the unreserved and abundant commendation which he always gave to his friends and fellow-labourers. Then unfortunately an event occurred which called forth his affectionate feelings. On the 3rd of July, 1672, Mr. Willughby was unexpectedly carried off by an acute disorder, in the thirty-seventh year of his age. The care of his two infant sons was confided by himself to Mr. Ray, who was also appointed one of his five executors, and to whom he left an annuity of sixty pounds for life. The eldest of these youths was created a baronet at the age of ten years, but died before he was twenty. Their sister, Cassandra, afterwards married the Duke of Chandos. Thomas, the younger son, was one of the ten peers created, all on the same day, by Queen Anne, and received the title of Lord Middleton. The care of his pupils, and of the literary concerns of their deceased parent, now interrupted Mr. Ray’s botanizing excursions, and caused him also to decline the offer of Dr. Lister, then a physician at York, to settle under his roof. Bishop Wilkins did not long survive Mr. Willughby, and his death made another chasm in the scientific and social circle of our great natural philosopher, who felt these losses as deeply and tenderly as any man. He sought consolation in a domestic attachment, fixing his choice on a young woman of good parentage, whose name was Margaret Oakley, and who resided in the family at Middleton Hall. He was married at the parish church, June 5th, 1673, being then in the forty-fifth year of his age, and his bride about twenty. This lady took a share in the early education of his pupils, as far as concerned their reading English. She is said to have been recommended by her character, as well as by her person, to the regard of her husband. She bore him three daughters who, with their mother, survived him.

The first fruit of our author’s leisure and retirement was a book on a new classification of plants, published in 1682. His principles of arrangement are chiefly derived from the fruit. The regularity and irregularity of flowers, which took the lead in the system of contemporary botanists, made no part of that of Ray. It is remarkable that he adopts the ancient primary division of plants into trees, shrubs, and herbs, and that he blamed Rivinus, one of his fellow-labourers, for abolishing it, though his own prefatory remarks tend to overset that principle, as a vulgar and casual one, unworthy of a philosopher. That his system was not merely a commodious artificial aid to practical botany, but a philosophical clue to a correct natural classification, he probably, like his fellow-labourers for many years in this department, believed, yet he was too modest and too learned to think he had brought the new and arduous design to perfection. For whatever he has incidentally or deliberately thrown out respecting the value of his labours, is often marked with more diffidence on the subject of classification than any other. The great service that Ray did to botany was the foreshadowing the so-called natural system of classification, which was to supersede the artificial system of Linnæus, which will be described in a future page. He first applied his system to practical use in a general “History of Plants,” of which the first volume, a thick folio, was published in 1686, and the second in 1687. The third volume of the same work, which is supplementary, came out in 1704. This vast and critical compilation is still in use as a book of reference, being particularly valuable as an epitome of the contents of various rare and expensive works, which ordinary libraries cannot possess. The description of species is faithful and instructive, the remarks original, bounded only by the whole circuit of the botanical learning of that day; nor are generic characters neglected, however vaguely they are assumed. Specific differences do not enter regularly into the author’s plan, nor has he followed any uniform rules of nomenclature. So ample a transcript of the practical knowledge of such a botanist cannot but be a treasure; yet it is now much neglected, few persons being learned enough to use it with facility for want of figures and a popular nomenclature; and those who are, seldom requiring its assistance.

But if the fame or the utility of Ray’s botanical work has neither of them been commensurate with the expectations that might have been formed, a little octavo volume which he gave to the world in 1690, amply supplied all such defects, and proved the great corner-stone of his reputation in this department of science. This was “A Methodical Synopsis of British Wild Plants.” The two editions of his alphabetical catalogue of English plants being sold off, and some pettifogging reasons of his booksellers standing in the way of a third, with any improvements, he remodelled the work, throwing it into a systematic form, revising the whole, supplying generic characters, with numerous additions of species and various emendations and remarks. The uses and medicinal qualities of the plants are removed to the alphabetical index at the end. A second edition of this “Synopsis” was published in 1693, but its author never prepared another. The third, now most in use, was edited twenty-eight years afterward by Dillenius. Of all the systematical and practical floras of any country the second edition of Ray’s “Synopsis” was the most perfect of his time, and for many a long year afterwards. “He examined every plant recorded in his work, and even gathered most of them himself. He investigated their different names with consummate accuracy; and if the clearness and precision of other authors had equalled his, he would scarcely have committed an error. It is difficult to find him in a mistake or misconception respecting nature herself, though he sometimes misapprehends the bad figures or lame descriptions he was obliged to consult.” Above a hundred species are added in this second edition, and the cryptogamic plants in particular are more amply elucidated. The work led to much disputing, but Ray took no delight in controversy; its inevitable asperities were foreign to his nature. One of the biographers of Ray writes: “We must not omit to notice that in the preface to both editions of his ‘Synopsis’ the learned author, venerable for his character, his talents, and his profession, as well as by his noble adherence to principle in the most corrupt times, has taken occasion to congratulate his country, and to pour out his grateful effusions to Divine Providence in a style worthy of Milton for the establishment of religion, law, and liberty by the revolution which placed King William on the throne. An honest Englishman, however retired in his habits and pursuits, could not have withheld this tribute at such a time, nor was any loyalty ever more personally disinterested than that of Ray.” The year 1690 was the date of the first publication of his noble work on “The Wisdom of God in Creation,” of which we have already spoken, and whose sale through many editions was very extensive. In 1700 he printed a book more exclusively within the sphere of his sacred profession, called “A Persuasive to a Holy Life,” a rare performance of the kind at that day, being devoid of enthusiasm, mysticism, or cant, as well as of religious bigotry or party spirit, “and employing the plain and solid arguments of reason for the best of purposes.” His three “Physico-Theological Discourses concerning the Chaos, Deluge, and Dissolution of the World,” of which the original materials had been collected and prepared formerly at Cambridge, came out in 1692, and were reprinted the following year. A third edition, superintended by Derham, was published in 1713. This able editor took up the same subject himself, in a similar performance, the materials of which, like Ray’s, were first delivered in sermons at Bow church, he having been appointed reader of Mr. Boyle’s lectures.

Ray studied animals as carefully as he did plants, and his influence on zoology will be noticed further on in this book, and he revised a translation of Rauwolff’s travels, and gave a catalogue of Grecian, Syrian, Egyptian, and Cretan plants. Ever wishing for the truth, he was led during a correspondence with Rivinus, a foreign botanist, to revise his system of the classification of plants, and to include that of his friend in it. Ray was impressed with the greater importance of the seeds and fruits of plants in classification than of the leaves and floral envelopes; Rivinus and others believed in the superior importance of the flower as a means of distinguishing and grouping plants. After due consideration, Ray included part of the plan of his friend, but it is certain that plants cannot be safely grouped, in every instance, by the similarity of their flowers.

All this correspondence and alteration of systems was extremely useful, for it led to the foundation of what is called the natural system of classification, in opposition to the artificial style, which was founded by the great man whose life will be noticed in the next chapter.

Ray lived a long, happy, and useful life, and died at Black Notley, in a house of his own building, in 1705, in the seventy-seventh year of his age. A friend wrote of him: “In his dealings, no man more strictly just; in his conversation, no man more humble, courteous, and affable; towards God no man more devout; and towards the poor and distressed no man more compassionate and charitable according to his abilities.” He was buried, according to his own wish, at Black Notley; but he would not have his body buried in the chancel of the church, choosing rather to repose with his ancestors in the churchyard. Ray died rich in honours, but not rich in money, as he had to give up his living in the Church for conscience’ sake and conform as a layman. He was singularly charitable in his opinions to others; and as his work has lasted until the present day, and has influenced the progress of natural history, England may well be proud of the blacksmith’s son.

Joseph Pitton de Tournefort was born at Aix, in France, in 1656. He was of a noble family, and was educated with care, and had all the comforts of life. Living, however, far away from the gay scenes of Paris and in a country town, Tournefort soon began to wander over the fields by himself, and, like most boys, he loved to gather flowers. More than this, he began to study them. But such pleasures were not to be his at once, for his parents destined him to be a priest, and he was obliged to enter the Catholic seminary at Aix. There he began to learn Latin, and in course of time became a great proficient, speaking and writing that language well, which at that time was fairly known by every educated person. His theological studies were rather neglected by him, and whenever he had the opportunity, he got books on natural philosophy, chemistry, medicine, and, above all, on botany. He studied them with great assiduity, and until he was twenty-one years of age. Tournefort’s father died in 1677, and the young man then being independent, threw off his cap and gown, said good-bye to the seminary and its priests, and devoted himself forthwith and as long as life lasted to the science of natural history, and especially to botany.

He did not rest satisfied with the books of Plinius and Aristoteles, or of the feeble botanists of his youth, but he intended to study plants as they grew, to discover their uses, and to endeavour to classify and name them. Besides, he got a love for the healing art, for one of his first teachers was a chemist of Aix, who gave him lessons about the common simple plants which were used in medicine. So, after roaming over the country far and wide, month after month, and collecting plants in Provence, on the mountains of Dauphiné and Savoy, he went to Montpellier in 1679 to study anatomy and medicine. The young student was there for two years, and then he seems to have set the example to his fellow-students, for botanical excursions became a favourite method of passing away time. In 1681, in company with several fellow-students, he went to the Pyrenees, and wandered about those difficult mountains, submitting to much fatigue, cold, and hunger. Very robust in health, and vigorous, his fatigues and hard fare seemed to do him good, and at last he obtained a very fine collection of the plants of that region. It is always told that the ardent young botanist and his friends got into trouble, being taken prisoners more than once by Miguelites (smugglers); but it is not likely that those people got much out of them.

On his return home he found that his reputation as a practical botanist and as knowing useful plants, had spread about, although he had not written any work at that time. M. Fagon, a distinguished botanist of the age, was physician to Louis XIV., and had had many an excursion to collect plants in Provence, Languedoc, and Auvergne, before he became a great man at court. He got plants from those localities, and had them planted in the botanic gardens, of which the king was fond; and, fortunately for his prospects in life, he discovered the medicinal uses of some natural baths at Barèges, which he recommended to the Duc de Maine. On his return to Paris, M. Fagon was made professor of botany and chemistry to the Jardin des Plantes, and subsequently became physician to the king and princes, and director of the gardens. M. Fagon wanted help, for little was known about the plants of the countries beyond Europe, and he sought the services of a young and wise botanist who had plenty of energy. He destined young Tournefort for a great career, and offered him the professorship of the Botanic garden, intending that the young teacher, after a while, should travel, and collect for the garden. Finding the prospects good, Tournefort accepted the position, and desirous of adding to the collection of plants, visited Spain again, and then Portugal. Subsequently he came over to England, and then collected in Holland. His name was well known as that of a practical botanist, and the Dutch offered him a professorship at Leyden. He was elected to the highest scientific honour in France—to the membership of the Academy of Science. Two years afterwards Tournefort published his first and great work, “The Elements of Botany, or a method of Distinguishing Plants.” This work established his reputation all over Europe. It was a very remarkable book. Tournefort travelled in Asia Minor, Circassia, Georgia, Northern Assyria, Candia, and Greece, and was the first man who gave publicity to the truth that the same plants are not found in all countries, and that most countries have many plants peculiar to them. He may be said to have founded the science of the geographical distribution of plants. His descriptions of plants were 10,000 in number; their arrangement in species and genera was excellent. Less praise must be given about the manner of his separating the greater divisions of the plants one from the other. Nevertheless, much of the work of this great traveller has lasted until the present day as good science. Plants are arranged in species, which consist of individuals, having a close structural resemblance without any constant differences of the form of the stem, roots, leaves, flowers, and seeds. A genus is a group of species with a general resemblance, some special character predominating. An order is a number of more or less similar genera, and a class contains orders which have greater resemblance than those of another class.