MEMOIR OF REV. JOHN FLEMING, D.D. 669 
which they belong, and that if any one of the functions were modified in a 
manner incompatible with the regulations of the others, that being could not 
exist.’ That such harmony prevails in every species is evident; but instead of 
being always produced by the same agents in the same state of mutual depend- 
ence, it is maintained in the midst of a diversity of combinations by a variety of 
compensating means, which display in a most astonishing manner the endless 
resources of the wisdom and power of the great Creator.” 
In illustration of the same views he adds, “ An animal, therefore, which can 
only digest flesh must, to preserve its species, have the power of discovering its 
prey, of pursuing it, of seizing it, of overcoming it, and tearing it in pieces. It is 
necessary, then, that this animal should have a penetrating eye, a quick smell, a 
swift motion, address and strength in the claws and in the jaws. Agreeably to 
this necessity, a sharp tooth fitted for cutting flesh is never co-existent in the 
Same species with a foot covered with horn, which can only support the animal, 
but with which it cannot grasp anything; hence the law by which all hoofed 
animals are herbivorous, and also those still more detailed laws which are but 
corollaries of the first, that hoofs indicate dentes molares with flat crowns, a very 
long alimentary canal, a capacious or multiplied stomach, and several other rela- 
tions of the same kind” (p. 55). “This specious reasoning,” says FLEmtne, 
“would certainly lead to the admission of these necessary laws of co-existence, 
were the statements advanced correct in all their bearings. But the operations 
of nature are not restrained by such trammels. Quadrupeds possessing the com- - 
mon quality of being carnivorous have not all the same number of teeth, nor of 
the same shape, neither the same kind of stomach or intestines. Again, all 
herbivorous animals are not hoofed, for many of them are digitated, as the hare. 
All hoofed animals have not flat-crowned teeth like the bull, nor pointed teeth 
like the boar, nor a simple stomach like the horse, nor deciduous horns like the 
stag, nor a reservoir for drink like the camel, nor digestive organs that do not 
require any, like the sheep. Indeed, the number of varieties included under one 
species, the number of species belonging to a genus, and the number of genera in 
an order, intimate the variableness of the conditions of co-existence, and the 
absence of those supposed laws of relation, the belief in the mathematical necessity 
of which has contributed to augment the clumsy fabric of modern materialism.” 
From 1824 to 1826 FLemine contributed many papers on geological subjects 
to the “Edinburgh Philosophical Journal.” Among these may be noticed his 
admirable one “On the Influence of Society on the Distribution of British Ani- 
mals,” and that “On the Geological Deluge as interpreted by Baron Cuvier and 
Professor BuckLanp.” In the first of these memoirs he took up a position 
against BucKLAND’s views, as shown in his “ Reliquize Diluviane,” to which 
BucKLanD replied in a subsequent number of the Journal. Had the future Dean 
of Westminster known what he was evoking, he would have kept his discourse 
