Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 52.djvu/837

Rh or into both, the deduction would have been thirty or forty. If Pennsylvania must tax bonds of this description, she must confine it to bonds issued exclusively by her own corporations. Our conclusion is that to permit the deduction of the tax from the coupons in question would be giving effect to the acts of the Pennsylvania Legislature upon property and interests lying beyond her jurisdiction."



N the present paper it is not my purpose to discuss the evidence in favor of evolution or the arguments which may be urged against it. This has been done quite thoroughly in our previous meetings at Paris and Brussels. I shall assume evolution as proved, or rather, that it is the only working theory which is competent to meet the demands of modern science. As against the alternative theory of creationism the evidence, I think, all must admit, is overwhelmingly in favor of evolution. I am quite willing to agree with our retiring president, M. le Marquis de Nadaillac, that as yet the theory is not proved by any demonstrative evidence, for the simple reason that, in the very nature of the case, anything approaching an absolute demonstration, at least in our present state of knowledge, is impossible. But, notwithstanding this, even the most skeptical must concede that evolution is a probable theory, and this is all that need here be claimed.

I freely grant that, a priori, creationism is quite possible, but is it probable? Science answers "No." As to affording any positive evidence in behalf of the special creation of species, it is absolutely mute, and the negative evidence is of such a character that there are few, if any, serious men of science who are willing to consider it as having any weight whatever. A priori, creationism is possible; a posteriori, it is so highly improbable as to be practically ruled out of court. Indeed, those who still cling to the theory rely either on negative evidence, which in such questions is never conclusive or satisfactory, or appeal for support of their view to the account of creation given in the book of Genesis. They assume that the Genesiac narrative is to be interpreted literally, whereas all contemporary biblical scholars of note declare that it is to be understood not literally but allegorically. Nor is there anything new in thus 