Beauty
what is the use of butterflies?
“ You ask what is the use of butterflies? I reply to adorn the world and delight the eyes of men; to brighten the countryside like so many golden jewels. To contemplate their exquisite beauty and variety is to experience the truest pleasure. To gaze enquiringly at such elegance of colour and form devised by the ingenuity of nature and painted by her artist’s pencil, is to acknowledge and adore the imprint of the art of God.”
“...
the Art of the most skilful Painter cannot so mingle and temper his colours, as exactly to imitate or counterfeit the native ones of the flowers of vegetables.”
Wisdom of God p.108
Ray recalled that while recovering from an illness in 1659:
“
There was leisure to contemplate by the way what lay constantly before the eyes and were so often trodden thoughtlessly under foot, the various beauty of plants, the cunning craftsmanship of nature. First the rich array of spring-time meadows, then the shape, colour and structure of particular plants fascinated and absorbed me: interest in botany became a passion.”
Preface of Cambridge Catalogue, 1660
Ray saw intricate natural details as marks of God's craftsmanship.
“
These Nests some of them so elegant and artificial, that it is hard for Man to imitate them and make the like. I have seen Nests of an Indian Bird so artificially compos’d of the Fibres, I think, of some Roots, so curiously interwoven and platted together, as is admirable to behold ...”
Wisdom of God p.120
Even to perceive God's design at different scales confounds human senses.
“
more will escape our notice than can be discover’d by the most diligent scrutiny for our eyes and senses, however arm’d or assisted, are too gross to discern the curiosity of the Workmanship of Nature, or those minute Parts by which it acts, and of which Bodies are compos’d; and our Understandiug too dark and infirm to discover and comprehend all the Ends and Uses to which the infinitely wise Creator did design them.”
Wisdom of God p.57
Commenting on early observations of micro-organisms, Ray wrote: “I confess for want of a good microscope I have not observed them for myself.”
In 1692 Sir John Aubrey sent to Ray a ‘glass microscope’, probably a simple lens like those that Aubrey himself used.
Ray quoted the Bishop of Chester’s view that God’s works were much finer than Men’s works.
“
The Observations which have been made in these latter Times by the Help of the Microscope, ... discover a vast difference between Natural and Artificial Things. Whatever is natural, beheld thro’ that, appears exquisitely form’d, and adorn’d with all imaginable Elegancy and Beauty. There are such inimitable glidings in the smallest Seeds of Plants, but especially in the Parts of Animals in the Head or Eye of a small Fly; such Accuracy, Order and Symmetry in the Frame of the most minute Creatures, a Louse, for example, or a Mite, as no Man were able to conceive without seeing of them. Whereas the most curious Works of Art, the sharpest and finest Needle, doth appear as a blunt rough Bar of Iron, coming from the Furnace or the Forge: The most accurate Engravings or Embollishments seem such rude, bungling and deform’d Work, as if they had been done with a Mattock or Trowel; so vast a Difference is there betwixt the Skill of Nature, and the Rudeness and Imperfection of Art. I might add, that the Works of Nature, the better Lights and Glasses you use, the more clearer and exactly form’d they appear; whereas the Effects of Human Art, the more curiously they are view’d and examin’d, the more of Deformity they discover.”
Wisdom p.58 quoting Treatise of Natural Religion Lib.I.C.6.
“
There was leisure to contemplate by the way what lay constantly before the eyes and were so often trodden thoughtlessly under foot, the various beauty of plants, the cunning craftsmanship of nature. First the rich array of spring-time meadows, then the shape, colour and structure of particular plants fascinated and absorbed me: interest in botany became a passion.”
Cambridge Catalogue