Page:Makers of British botany.djvu/58

 38

There can be no doubt that Ray was more fortunate than Morison in the impression that he produced upon contemporary botanists and upon those who immediately succeeded them. This, for instance, is what Tournefort said of him ('Elemens de Botanique, 1694, p. 19): "Monsieur Ray sans faire tant de bruit a beaucoup mieux réussi que Morison. Sa modes tie est louable, et l'Histoire des Plantes qu'il nous a donnée est une Bibliotheque Botanique, dans laquelle on trouve non seulement tout ce que les auteurs ont dit de meilleur sur chaque plante; mais encore les caracteres des genres y sont designer d'une maniere assez commode…." In the Classes Plantarum (1738) Linnaeus gave a somewhat formal approval of Ray's work: "Magna sunt opera J. Raji in Scientia Botanica, qui constantia summa, omnia, quae beneficio seculi innotuerant de plantis, manu plus quam ferrea descripsit." But perhaps a more genuine opinion is that expressed by Linnaeus in the letter to Haller from which his estimate of Morison has already been quoted (see p. 27): "You are here justly aware, that when the System of Ray was spoken of as perfectly natural, all botanists must have been blind, unless, like Dillenius, they hoped for a professorship, or were compelled, by the authority of the English, to give to Ray supreme honours. What was he? Undoubtedly an indefatigable man in collecting, describing, etc.; but in the knowledge of generic principles, less than nothing, and altogether deficient in the examination of flowers. I beg of you to compare the first edition of his Methodus with the second and third, where he has learned to take everything from Tournefort. I know not why the