54 Mr. W. S. MacLeay on the Dyi?ig Struggle 



a writer that denies the existence of a single natural method ? 

 No, says he, I must admit that there are as many natural 

 methods as there are organs. But where there are an infi- 

 nite number of methods to effect a given object, such as the 

 creation, it is clear that there can be no fixed plan. If the 

 architect of the kirk of Flisk has in its composition huddled 

 Grecian and Gothic, Saracen and Scotch, with every other or- 

 der of architecture together, it is clear he had no plan, and our 

 worthy minister preaches in the midst of confusion. So also, if 

 the minister of the said kirk be right, must the creation be a 

 mass of confusion, without any fixed plan on the part of the 

 Creator ? And yet he ventures to sneer at one of the most 

 distinguished of naturalists, and to cite the following lines with 

 respect to him: 



" But Reason still, unless divinely taught, 

 Whate'er she learn, learns nothing as she ought." 



He talks of demonstrating that there is no fixed plan in the 

 creation. But how does he do this? Because, forsooth, the 

 locomotive extremities of the horse and cow are represented 

 by hands in man, fins in the whale, and wings in bats and 

 squirrels ; because, moreover, teeth may be incisors in one 

 animal and molars in another, and so on ! — therefore, animals 

 are susceptible of one natural distribution according to their 

 locomotive organs, and of others according to their teeth, &c. 

 To return to the kirk : Supposing it to be built on the most 

 harmonious and uniform plan of Grecian architecture, and to 

 be another Parthenon, Dr. Fleming may dichotomize it into 

 architraves and not architraves, columns and not columns, 

 friezes and not friezes, or any positives and negatives he 

 pleases : — but will he tell us that, because he chooses so to di- 

 vide it, therefore the architect had not one plan for the fabric, 

 but as many plans as there are terms in architecture? Yet 

 such is the reasoning by which he conceives himself forced to 

 admit that the Deity had no plan in the creation. Sorry for 

 it, very sorry he is; but he assures us there is no remedy. 



But he says, " If unity of method in the creation be admit- 

 ted, it will in many cases separate groups from other genera 

 with which they are intimately connected ;" and he proves 

 this, by the genus Lepus in Zoology and Sambucus in Botany, 

 as follows : " The hare, in relation to her offspring, exhibits an 

 affinity with the horse and sheep ; while the rabbit, in the same 

 relation, claims kindred (as does also the cat) with the opossum 

 and kangaroo." Ergo, a natural dichotomous division, accord- 

 ing to Dr. Fleming, is into those that at their birth have their 

 eyes open, containing the natural group the hare, the horse, 



and 



