John Ray applied one of the previously more general terms for fixed natural types, "species," to plant and animal types, but he strictly identified each type of living thing as a species and proposed that each species could be defined by the features that perpetuated themselves generation after generation.
约翰·雷，首次把更概括的術語「種」(species)應用於植物和動物種類上，但他嚴格地標識每類活著的東西為一種物種，建議每一個物種可以由一代延續一代的自身特點來定義。