John Ray

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John Ray

John Ray (November 29, 162729 November 1627
21 Kislev 5388 He
20 Kislev 5631 AM – January 17, 170517 January 1705
21 Teveth 5465 He
21 Shevat 5708 AM) was the son of an herbalist, and so gained an immense love of nature and plants. He studied mathematics, languages, and natural science at the University of Cambridge. In 1649 Ray became a Fellow, in 1651 he became a Lecturer, and in 1658 he became junior Dean of the University.

Ray is considered one of the founders of modern science. He wrote the first textbook of modern botany, and was the first to discover that tree wood conducts water. He is also described as "the first true systematist of the animal kingdom" (Baron Cuvier).

John Ray became an ordained priest of the Anglican church and wrote the classic work titled Wisdom of God in 1691.

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First of all, the Numbers of fix’d Stars is on all hands acknowledg’d to be next to infinite: Secondly, Every fix’d Star, in the now-receiv’d Hypothesis, is a Sun or Sun-like Body, and in like manner incircled with a Chorus of Planets moving about it; for the fix’d Stars are not all placed in one and the same concave Spherical Superficies, and equidistant from us, as they seem to be, but are variously and disorderly situate, some nearer, some further off, just like Trees in a Wood or Forest; as Gassendus exemplifies them. And as in a Wood, tho’ the Trees grow never so irregularly, yet the Eye of the Spectator, wherever plac’d, or whithersoever remov’d, describes still a circle of Trees: So would it in like manner wherever it were in the Forest of Stars, decribe a Spherical Superficies about it...

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Besides these, there have been incomparably more detected and brought to light by the Telescope; the Milky-way being found out to be; (as was formerly conjectr’d) nothing but great Companies or Swarms of Minute Stars singly invisible, but by reason of their Proximity mingling and confounding their Lights, and appearing like lucid Clouds. And it’s likely that, had we more perfect Telescopes many Thousands more might be discovered; and yet after all, an incredible Multitude remain, by reason of their immense Distance beyond all Ken by the best Telescopes that could possibly be invented or polish’d by the Wit and Hand of an Angel:

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