Chapter XV: Part 15

The tide of Filicaja's fortunes now turned. The grand-duke of Tuscany, Cosmo III., conferred on him an important office, the commissionership of official balloting. He was named governor of Volterra in 1696, where he strenuously exerted himself to raise the tone of public morality. Both there and at Pisa, where he was subsequently governor in 1700, his popularity was so great that on his removal the inhabitants of both cities petitioned for his recall. He passed the close of his life at Florence; the grand-duke raised him to the rank of senator, and he died in that city on the 24th of September 1707. He was buried in the family vault in the church of St Peter, and a monument was erected to his memory by his sole surviving son Scipione Filicaja. In the six celebrated odes inspired by the great victory of Sobieski, Filicaja took a lyrical flight which has placed him at moments on a level with the greatest Italian poets. They are, however, unequal, like all his poetry, reflecting in some passages the native vigour of his genius and purest inspirations of his tastes, whilst in others they are deformed by the affectations of the _Seicentisti_. When thoroughly natural and spontaneous--as in the two sonnets "Italia, Italia, o tu cui feo la sorte" and "Dov' e, Italia, il tuo braccio? e a che ti serve;" in the verses "Alla beata Vergine," "Al divino amore;" in the sonnet "Sulla fede nelle disgrazie"--the truth and beauty of thought and language recall the verse of Petrarch.

Besides the poems published in the complete Venice edition of 1762,
several other pieces appeared for the first time in the small Florence
edition brought out by Barbera in 1864.

FILIGREE (formerly written _filigrain_ or _filigrane_; the Ital. _filigrana_, Fr. _filigrane_, Span, _filigrana_, Ger. _Drahtgeflecht_), jewel work of a delicate kind made with twisted threads usually of gold and silver. The word, which is usually derived from the Lat. _filum_, thread, and _granum_, grain, is not found in Ducange, and is indeed of modern origin. According to Prof. Skeat it is derived from the Span. _filigrana_, from "_filar_, to spin, and _grano_, the grain or principal fibre of the material." Though filigree has become a special branch of jewel work in modern times it was anciently part of the ordinary work of the jeweller. Signor A. Castellani states, in his _Memoir on the Jewellery of the Ancients_ (1861), that all the jewelry of the Etruscans and Greeks (other than that intended for the grave, and therefore of an unsubstantial character) was made by soldering together and so building up the gold rather than by chiselling or engraving the material.

The art may be said to consist in curling, twisting and plaiting fine pliable threads of metal, and uniting them at their points of contact with each other, and with the ground, by means of gold or silver solder and borax, by the help of the blowpipe. Small grains or beads of the same metals are often set in the eyes of volutes, on the junctions, or at intervals at which they will set off the wire-work effectively. The more delicate work is generally protected by framework of stouter wire. Brooches, crosses, earrings and other personal ornaments of modern filigree are generally surrounded and subdivided by bands of square or flat metal, giving consistency to the filling up, which would not otherwise keep its proper shape. Some writers of repute have laid equal stress on the _filum_ and the _granum_, and have extended the use of the term filigree to include the granulated work of the ancients, even where the twisted wire-work is entirely wanting. Such a wide application of the term is not approved by current usage, according to which the presence of the twisted threads is the predominant fact.

The Egyptian jewellers employed wire, both to lay down on a background and to plait or otherwise arrange _a jour_. But, with the exception of chains, it cannot be said that filigree work was much practised by them. Their strength lay rather in their cloisonne work and their moulded ornaments. Many examples, however, remain of round plaited gold chains of fine wire, such as are still made by the filigree workers of India, and known as Trichinopoly chains. From some of these are hung smaller chains of finer wire with minute fishes and other pendants fastened to them. In ornaments derived from Phoenician sites, such as Cyprus and Sardinia, patterns of gold wire are laid down with great delicacy on a gold ground, but the art was advanced to its highest perfection in the Greek and Etruscan filigree of the 6th to the 3rd centuries B.C. A number of earrings and other personal ornaments found in central Italy are preserved in the Louvre and in the British Museum. Almost all of them are made of filigree work. Some earrings are in the form of flowers of geometric design, bordered by one or more rims each made up of minute volutes of gold wire, and this kind of ornament is varied by slight differences in the way of disposing the number or arrangement of the volutes. But the feathers and petals of modern Italian filigree are not seen in these ancient designs. Instances occur, but only rarely, in which filigree devices in wire are self-supporting and not applied to metal plates. The museum of the Hermitage at St Petersburg contains an amazingly rich collection of jewelry from the tombs of the Crimea. Many bracelets and necklaces in that collection are made of twisted wire, some in as many as seven rows of plaiting, with clasps in the shape of heads of animals of beaten work. Others are strings of large beads of gold, decorated with volutes, knots and other patterns of wire soldered over the surfaces. (See the _Antiquites du Bosphore Cimmerien_, by Gille, 1854; reissued by S. Reinach, 1892, in which will be found careful engravings of these objects.) In the British Museum a sceptre, probably that of a Greek priestess, is covered with plaited and netted gold wire, finished with a sort of Corinthian capital and a boss of green glass.

It is probable that in India and various parts of central Asia filigree has been worked from the most remote period without any change in the designs. Whether the Asiatic jewellers were influenced by the Greeks settled on that continent, or merely trained under traditions held in common with them, it is certain that the Indian filigree workers retain the same patterns as those of the ancient Greeks, and work them in the same way, down to the present day. Wandering workmen are given so much gold, coined or rough, which is weighed, heated in a pan of charcoal, beaten into wire, and then worked in the courtyard or verandah of the employer's house according to the designs of the artist, who weighs the complete work on restoring it and is paid at a specified rate for his labour. Very fine grains or beads and spines of gold, scarcely thicker than coarse hair, projecting from plates of gold are methods of ornamentation still used.

Passing to later times we may notice in many collections of medieval jewel work (such as that in the South Kensington Museum) reliquaries, covers for the gospels, &c., made either in Constantinople from the 6th to the 12th centuries, or in monasteries in Europe, in which Byzantine goldsmiths' work was studied and imitated. These objects, besides being enriched with precious stones, polished, but not cut into facets, and with enamel, are often decorated with filigree. Large surfaces of gold are sometimes covered with scrolls of filigree soldered on; and corner pieces of the borders of book covers, or the panels of reliquaries, are not unfrequently made up of complicated pieces of plaited work alternating with spaces encrusted with enamel. Byzantine filigree work occasionally has small stones set amongst the curves or knots. Examples of such decoration can be seen in the South Kensington and British Museums.

In the north of Europe the Saxons, Britons and Celts were from an early period skilful in several kinds of goldsmiths' work. Admirable examples of filigree patterns laid down in wire on gold, from Anglo-Saxon tombs, may be seen in the British Museum--notably a brooch from Dover, and a sword-hilt from Cumberland.

The Irish filigree work is more thoughtful in design and more varied in pattern than that of any period or country that could be named. Its highest perfection must be placed in the 10th and 11th centuries. The Royal Irish Academy in Dublin contains a number of reliquaries and personal jewels, of which filigree is the general and most remarkable ornament. The "Tara" brooch has been copied and imitated, and the shape and decoration of it are well known. Instead of fine curls or volutes of gold thread, the Irish filigree is varied by numerous designs in which one thread can be traced through curious knots and complications, which, disposed over large surfaces, balance one another, but always with special varieties and arrangements difficult to trace with the eye. The long thread appears and disappears without breach of continuity, the two ends generally worked into the head and the tail of a serpent or a monster. The reliquary containing the "Bell of St Patrick" is covered with knotted work in many varieties. A two-handled chalice, called the "Ardagh cup," found near Limerick in 1868, is ornamented with work of this kind of extraordinary fineness. Twelve plaques on a band round the body of the vase, plaques on each handle and round the foot of the vase have a series of different designs of characteristic patterns, in fine filigree wire work wrought on the front of the repousse ground. (See a paper by the 3rd earl of Dunraven in _Transactions of Royal Irish Academy_, xxiv. pt. iii. 1873.)

Much of the medieval jewel work all over Europe down to the 15th century, on reliquaries, crosses, croziers and other ecclesiastical goldsmiths' work, is set off with bosses and borders of filigree. Filigree work in silver was practised by the Moors of Spain during the middle ages with great skill, and was introduced by them and established all over the Peninsula, whence it was carried to the Spanish colonies in America. The Spanish filigree work of the 17th and 18th centuries is of extraordinary complexity (examples in the Victoria and Albert Museum), and silver filigree jewelry of delicate and artistic design is still made in considerable quantities throughout the country. The manufacture spread over the Balearic Islands, and among the populations that border the Mediterranean. It is still made all over Italy, and in Malta, Albania, the Ionian Islands and many other parts of Greece. That of the Greeks is sometimes on a large scale, with several thicknesses of wires alternating with larger and smaller bosses and beads, sometimes set with turquoises, &c., and mounted on convex plates, making rich ornamental headpieces, belts and breast ornaments. Filigree silver buttons of wire-work and small bosses are worn by the peasants in most of the countries that produce this kind of jewelry. Silver filigree brooches and buttons are also made in Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Little chains and pendants are added to much of this northern work.

Some very curious filigree work was brought from Abyssinia after the capture of Magdala--arm-guards, slippers, cups, &c., some of which are now in the South Kensington Museum. They are made of thin plates of silver, over which the wire-work is soldered. The filigree is subdivided by narrow borders of simple pattern, and the intervening spaces are made up of many patterns, some with grains set at intervals.

A few words must be added as to the granulated work which, as stated above, some writers have classed under the term of filigree, although the twisted wires may be altogether wanting. Such decoration consists of minute globules of gold, soldered to form patterns on a metal surface. Its use is rare in Egypt. (See J. de Morgan, _Fouilles a Dahchour_, 1894-1895, pl. xii.) It occurs in Cyprus at an early period, as for instance on a gold pendant in the British Museum from Enkomi in Cyprus (10th century B.C.). The pendant is in the form of a pomegranate, and has upon it a pattern of triangles, formed by more than 3000 minute globules separately soldered on. It also occurs on ornaments of the 7th century B.C. from Camirus in Rhodes. But these globules are large, compared with those which are found on Etruscan jewelry. Signor Castellani, who had made the antique jewelry of the Etruscans and Greeks his special study, with the intention of reproducing the ancient models, found it for a long time impossible to revive this particular process of delicate soldering. He overcame the difficulty at last, by the discovery of a traditional school of craftsmen at St Angelo in Vado, by whose help his well-known reproductions were executed.

For examples of antique work the student should examine the gold
ornament rooms of the British Museum, the Louvre and the collection
in the Victoria and Albert Museum. The last contains a large and very
varied assortment of modern Italian, Spanish, Greek and other jewelry
made for the peasants of various countries. It also possesses
interesting examples of the modern work in granulated gold by
Castellani and Giuliano. The Celtic work is well represented in the
Royal Irish Academy in Dublin.

FILLAN, SAINT, or FAELAN, the name of the two Scottish saints, of Irish origin, whose lives are of a purely legendary character. The St Fillan whose feast is kept on the 20th of June had churches dedicated to his honour at Ballyheyland, Queen's county, Ireland, and at Loch Earn, Perthshire. The other, who is commemorated on the 9th of January, was specially venerated at Cluain Mavscua, Co. Westmeath, Ireland, and so early as the 8th or 9th century at Strathfillan, Perthshire, Scotland, where there was an ancient monastery dedicated to him, which, like most of the religious houses of early times, was afterwards secularized. The lay-abbot, who was its superior in the reign of William the Lion, held high rank in the Scottish kingdom. This monastery was restored in the reign of Robert Bruce, and became a cell of the abbey of canons regular at Inchaffray. The new foundation received a grant from King Robert, in gratitude for the aid which he was supposed to have obtained from a relic of the saint on the eve of the great victory of Bannockburn. Another relic was the saint's staff or crozier, which became known as the coygerach or quigrich, and was long in the possession of a family of the name of Jore or Dewar, who were its hereditary guardians. They certainly had it in their custody in the year 1428, and their right was formally recognized by King James III. in 1487. The head of the crozier, which is of silver-gilt with a smaller crozier of bronze inclosed within it, is now deposited in the National Museum of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.

The legend of the second of these saints is given in the Bollandist
_Acta SS._ (1643), 9th of January, i. 594-595; A.P. Forbes, _Kalendars
of Scottish Saints_ (Edinburgh, 1872), pp. 341-346; D. O'Hanlon's
_Lives of Irish Saints_ (Dublin), n.d. pp. 134-144. See also
_Historical Notices of St Fillan's Crozier_, by Dr John Stuart
(Aberdeen, 1877).

FILLET (through Fr. _filet_, from the med. Lat. _filettum_, diminutive of _filum_, a thread), a band or ribbon used for tying the hair, the Lat. _vitta_, which was used as a sacrificial emblem, and also worn by vestal virgins, brides and poets. The word is thus applied to anything in the shape of a band or strip, as, in coining, to the metal ribbon from which the blanks are punched. In architecture, a "fillet" is a narrow flat band, sometimes called a "listel," which is used to separate mouldings one from the other, or to terminate a suite of mouldings as at the top of a cornice. In the fluted column of the Ionic and Corinthian Orders the fillet is employed between the flutes. It is a very important feature in Gothic work, being frequently worked on large mouldings; when placed on the front and sides of the moulding of a rib it has been termed the "keel and wings" of the rib.

In cooking, "fillet" is used of the "undercut" of a sirloin of beef, or of a thick slice of fish or meat; more particularly of a boned and rolled piece of veal or other meat, tied by a "fillet" or string.

FILLMORE, MILLARD (1800-1874), thirteenth president of the United States of America, came of a family of English stock, which had early settled in New England. His father, Nathaniel, in 1795, made a clearing within the limits of what is now the town of Summerhill, Cayuga county, New York, and there Millard Fillmore was born, on the 7th of January 1800. Until he was fifteen he could have acquired only the simplest rudiments of education, and those chiefly from his parents. At that age he was apprenticed to a fuller and clothier, to card wool, and to dye and dress the cloth. Two years before the close of his term, with a promissory note for thirty dollars, he bought the remainder of his time from his master, and at the age of nineteen began to study law. In 1820 he made his way to Buffalo, then only a village, and supported himself by teaching school and aiding the postmaster while continuing his studies.

In 1823 he was admitted to the bar, and began practice at Aurora, New York, to which place his father had removed. Hard study, temperance and integrity gave him a good reputation and moderate success, and in 1827 he was made an attorney and, in 1829, counsellor of the supreme court of the state. Returning to Buffalo in 1830 he formed, in 1832, a partnership with Nathan K. Hall (1810-1874), later a member of Congress and postmaster-general in his cabinet. Solomon G. Haven (1810-1861), member of Congress from 1851 to 1857, joined them in 1836. The firm met with great success. From 1829 to 1832 Fillmore served in the state assembly, and, in the single term of 1833-1835, the national House of Representatives, coming in as anti-Jackson, or in opposition to the administration. From 1837 to 1843, when he declined further service, he again represented his district in the House, this time as a member of the Whig party. In Congress he opposed the annexation of Texas as slave territory, was an advocate of internal improvements and a protective tariff, supported J.Q. Adams in maintaining the right of offering anti-slavery petitions, advocated the prohibition by Congress of the slave trade between the states, and favoured the exclusion of slavery from the District of Columbia. His speech and tone, however, were moderate on these exciting subjects, and he claimed the right to stand free of pledges, and to adjust his opinions and his course by the development of circumstances. The Whigs having the ascendancy in the Twenty-Seventh Congress, he was made chairman of the House Committee of Ways and Means. Against a strong opposition he carried an appropriation of $30,000 to Morse's telegraph, and reported from his committee the Tariff Bill of 1842. In 1844 he was the Whig candidate for the governorship of New York, but was defeated. In November 1847 he was elected comptroller of the state of New York, and in 1848 he was elected vice-president of the United States on the ticket with Zachary Taylor as president. Fillmore presided over the senate during the exciting debates on the "Compromise Measures of 1850."

President Taylor died on the 9th of July 1850, and on the next day Fillmore took the oath of office as his successor. The cabinet which he called around him contained Daniel Webster, Thomas Corwin and John J. Crittenden. On the death of Webster in 1852, Edward Everett became secretary of state. Unlike Taylor, Fillmore favoured the "Compromise Measures," and his signing one of them, the Fugitive Slave Law, in spite of the vigorous protests of anti-slavery men, lost him much of his popularity in the North. Few of his opponents, however, questioned his own full persuasion that the Compromise Measures were vitally necessary to pacify the nation. In 1851 he interposed promptly but ineffectively in thwarting the projects of the "filibusters," under Narciso Lopez for the invasion of Cuba. Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry's expedition, which opened up diplomatic relations with Japan, and the exploration of the valley of the Amazon by Lieutenants William L. Herndon (1813-1857) and Lardner Gibbon also occurred during his term. In the autumn of 1852 he was an unsuccessful candidate for nomination for the presidency by the Whig National Convention, and he went out of office on the 4th of March 1853. In February 1856, while he was travelling abroad, he was nominated for the presidency by the American or Know Nothing party, and later this nomination was also accepted by the Whigs; but in the ensuing presidential election, the last in which the Know Nothings and the Whigs as such took any part, he received the electoral votes of only one state, Maryland. Thereafter he took no public share in political affairs. Fillmore was twice married: in 1826 to Abigail Powers (who died in 1853, leaving him with a son and daughter), and in 1858 to Mrs. Caroline C. Mclntosh. He died at Buffalo on the 8th of March 1874.

In 1907 the Buffalo Historical Society, of which Fillmore was one of
the founders and the first president, published the _Millard Fillmore
Papers_ (2 vols., vol. x. and xi. of the Society's publications;
edited by F.H. Severance), containing miscellaneous writings and
speeches, and official and private correspondence. Most of his
correspondence, however, was destroyed in pursuance of a direction in
his son's will.

FILMER, SIR RORERT (d. 1653), English political writer, was the son of Sir Edward Filmer of East Sutton in Kent. He studied at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he matriculated in 1604. Knighted by Charles I. at the beginning of his reign, he was an ardent supporter of the king's cause, and his house is said to have been plundered by the parliamentarians ten times. He died on the 26th of May 1653.

Filmer was already a middle-aged man when the great controversy between the king and the Commons roused him into literary activity. His writings afford an exceedingly curious example of the doctrines held by the most extreme section of the Divine Right party. Filmer's theory is founded upon the statement that the government of a family by the father is the true original and model of all government. In the beginning of the world God gave authority to Adam, who had complete control over his descendants, even as to life and death. From Adam this authority was inherited by Noah; and Filmer quotes as not unlikely the tradition that Noah sailed up the Mediterranean and allotted the three continents of the Old World to the rule of his three sons. From Shem, Ham and Japheth the patriarchs inherited the absolute power which they exercised over their families and servants; and from the patriarchs all kings and governors (whether a single monarch or a governing assembly) derive their authority, which is therefore absolute, and founded upon divine right. The difficulty that a man "by the secret will of God may unjustly" attain to power which he has not inherited appeared to Filmer in no way to alter the nature of the power so obtained, for "there is, and always shall be continued to the end of the world, a natural right of a supreme father over every multitude." The king is perfectly free from all human control. He cannot be bound by the acts of his predecessors, for which he is not responsible; nor by his own, for "impossible it is in nature that a man should give a law unto himself"--a law must be imposed by another than the person bound by it. With regard to the English constitution, he asserted, in his _Freeholder's Grand Inquest touching our Sovereign Lord the King and his Parliament_ (1648), that the Lords only give counsel to the king, the Commons only "perform and consent to the ordinances of parliament," and the king alone is the maker of laws, which proceed purely from his will. It is monstrous that the people should judge or depose their king, for they would then be judges in their own cause.

The most complete expression of Filmer's opinions is given in the _Patriarcha_, which was published in 1680, many years after his death. His position, however, was sufficiently indicated by the works which he published during his lifetime: the _Anarchy of a Limited and Mixed Monarchy_ (1648), an attack upon a treatise on monarchy by Philip Hunton (1604?-1682), who maintained that the king's prerogative is not superior to the authority of the houses of parliament; the pamphlet entitled _The Power of Kings, and in particular of the King of England_ (1648), first published in 1680; and his _Observations upon Mr Hobbes's Leviathan, Mr Milton against Salmasius, and H. Grotius De jure belli et pacis, concerning the Originall of Government_ (1652). Filmer's theory, owing to the circumstances of the time, obtained a recognition which it is now difficult to understand. Nine years after the publication of the _Patriarcha_, at the time of the Revolution which banished the Stuarts from the throne, Locke singled out Filmer as the most remarkable of the advocates of Divine Right, and thought it worth while to attack him expressly in the first part of the _Treatise on Government_, going into all his arguments _seriatim_, and especially pointing out that even if the first steps of his argument be granted, the rights of the eldest born have been so often set aside that modern kings can claim no such inheritance of authority as he asserted.

FILMY FERNS, a general name for a group of ferns with delicate much-divided leaves and often moss-like growth, belonging to the genera _Hymenophyllum_, _Todea_ and _Trichomanes_. They require to be kept in close cases in a cool fernery, and the stones and moss amongst which they are grown must be kept continually moist so that the evaporated water condenses on the very numerous divisions of the leaves.

FILON, PIERRE MARIE AUGUSTIN (1841- ), French man of letters, son of the historian Charles Auguste Desire Filon (1800-1875), was born in Paris in 1841. His father became professor of history at Douai, and eventually "_inspecteur d'academie_" in Paris; his principal works were _Histoire comparee de France et de l'Angleterre_ (1832), _Histoire de l'Europe au XVI^e siecle_ (1838), _La Diplomatie francaise sous Louis XV_ (1843), _Histoire de l'Italie meridionale_ (1849), _Histoire du senat romain_ (1850), _Histoire de la democratie athenienne_ (1854). Educated at the Ecole normale, Augustin Filon was appointed tutor to the prince imperial and accompanied him to England, where he remained for some years. He is the author of _Guy Patin, sa vie, sa correspondance_ (1862); _Nos grands-peres_ (1887); _Prosper Merimee_ (1894); _Sous la tyrannie_ (1900). On English subjects he has written chiefly under the pseudonym of Pierre Sandrie, _Les Mariages de Londres_ (1875); _Histoire de la litterature anglaise_ (1883); _Le Theatre anglais_ (1896), and _La Caricature en Angleterre_ (1902).

FILOSA (A. Lang), one of the two divisions of Rhizopoda, characterized by protoplasm granular at the surface, and fine pseudopodia branching and usually acutely pointed at the tips.

FILTER (a word common in various forms to most European languages, adapted from the medieval Lat. _filtrum_, felt, a material used as a filtering agent), an arrangement for separating solid matter from liquids. In some cases the operation of filtration is performed for the sake of removing impurities from the filtrate or liquid filtered, as in the purification of water for drinking purposes; in others the aim is to recover and collect the solid matter, as when the chemist filters off a precipitate from the liquid in which it is suspended.

In regard to the purification of water, filtration was long looked upon as merely a mechanical process of straining out the solid particles, whereby a turbid water could be rendered clear. In the course of time it was noticed that certain materials, such as charcoal, had the power to some extent also of softening hard water and of removing organic matter, and at the beginning of the 19th century charcoal, both animal and vegetable, came into use for filtering purposes. Porous carbon blocks, made by strongly heating a mixture of powdered charcoal with oil, resin, &c., were introduced about a generation later, and subsequently various preparations of iron (spongy iron, magnetic oxide) found favour. Innumerable forms of filters made with these and other materials were put on the market, and were extolled as removing impurities of every kind from water, and as affording complete protection against the communication of disease. But whatever merits they had as clarifiers of turbid water, the advent of bacteriology, and the recognition of the fact that the bacteria of certain diseases may be water-borne, introduced a new criterion of effectiveness, and it was perceived that the removal of solid particles, or even of organic impurities (which were realized to be important not so much because they are dangerous to health _per se_ as because their presence affords grounds for suspecting that the water in which they occur has been exposed to circumstances permitting contamination with infective disease), was not sufficient; the filter must also prevent the passage of pathogenic organisms, and so render the water sterile bacteriologically. Examined from this point of view the majority of domestic filters were found to be gravely defective, and even to be worse than useless, since unless they were frequently and thoroughly cleansed, they were liable to become favourable breeding-places for microbes. The first filter which was more or less completely impermeable to bacteria was the Pasteur-Chamberland, which was devised in Pasteur's laboratory, and is made of dense biscuit porcelain. The filtering medium in this, as in other filters of the same kind, takes the form of a hollow cylinder or "candle," through the walls of which the water has to pass from the outside to the inside, the candles often being arranged so that they may be directly attached to a tap, whereby the rate of flow, which is apt to be slow, is accelerated by the pressure of the main. But even filters of this type, if they are to be fully relied upon, must be frequently cleaned and sterilized, and great care must be taken that the joints and connexions are watertight, and that the candles are without cracks or flaws. In cases where the water supply is known to be infected, or even where it is merely doubtful, it is wise to have recourse to sterilization by boiling, rather than trust to any filter. Various machines have been constructed to perform this operation, some of them specially designed for the use of troops in the field; those in which economy of fuel is studied have an exchange-heater, by means of which the incoming cold water receives heat from the outgoing hot water, which thus arrives at the point of outflow at a temperature nearly as low as that of the supply. Chemical methods of sterilization have also been suggested, depending on the use of iodine, chlorine, bromine, ozone, potassium permanganate, copper sulphate or chloride and other substances. For the sand-filtration of water on a large scale, in which the presence of a surface film containing zooglaea of bacteria is an essential feature, see WATER SUPPLY.

Filtration in the chemical laboratory is commonly effected by the aid of a special kind of unsized paper, which in the more expensive varieties is practically pure cellulose, impurities like ferric oxide, alumina, lime, magnesia and silica having been removed by treatment with hydrochloric and hydrofluoric acids. A circular piece of this paper is folded twice upon itself so as to form a quadrant, one of the folds is pulled out, and the cone thus obtained is supported in a glass or porcelain funnel having an apical angle of 60 deg. The liquid to be filtered is poured into the cone, preferably down a glass rod upon the sides of the funnel to prevent splashing and to preserve the apex of the filter-paper, and passes through the paper, upon which the solid matter is retained. In the case of liquids containing strong acids or alkalis, which the paper cannot withstand, a plug of carefully purified asbestos or glass-wool (spun glass) is often employed, contained in a bulb blown as an enlargement on a narrow "filter-tube." To accelerate the rate of filtration various devices are resorted to, such as lengthening the tube below the filtering material, increasing the pressure on the liquid being filtered, or decreasing it in the receiver of the filtrate. R.W. Bunsen may be regarded as the originator of the second method, and it was he who devised the small cone of platinum foil, sometimes replaced by a cone of parchment perforated with pinholes, arranged at the apex of the funnel to serve as a support for the paper, which is apt to burst under the pressure differences. In the so-called "Buchner funnel," the filtering vessel is cylindrical, and the paper receives support by being laid upon its flat perforated bottom. In filtering into a vacuum the flask receiving the filtrate should be connected to the exhaust through a second flask. The suction may be derived from any form of air-pump; a form often employed where water at fair pressure is available is the jet-pump, which in consequence is known as a filter-pump. Another method of filtering into a vacuum is to immerse a porous jar ("Pukall cell") in the liquid to be filtered, and attach a suction-pipe to its interior. A filtering arrangement devised by F.C. Gooch, which has come into common use in quantitative analysis where the solid matter has to be submitted to heating or ignition, consists of a crucible having a perforated bottom. By means of a piece of stretched rubber tubing, this crucible is supported in the mouth of an ordinary funnel which is connected with an exhausting apparatus; and water holding in suspension fine scrapings of asbestos, purified by boiling with strong hydrochloric acid and washing with water, is run through it, so that the perforated bottom is covered with a layer of felted asbestos. The crucible is then removed from the rubber support, weighed and replaced; the liquid is filtered through in the ordinary way; and the crucible with its contents is again removed, dried, ignited and weighed. A perforated cone, similarly coated with asbestos and fitted into a conical funnel, is sometimes employed.

In many processes of chemical technology filtration plays an important part. A crude method consists of straining the liquid through cotton or other cloth, either stretched on wooden frames or formed into long narrow bags ("bag-filters"). Occasionally filtration into a vacuum is practised, but more often, as in filter-presses, the liquid is forced under pressure, either hydrostatic or obtained from a force-pump or compressed air, into a series of chambers partitioned off by cloth, which arrests the solids, but permits the passage of the liquid portions. For separating liquids from solids of a fibrous or crystalline character "hydro-extractors" or "centrifugals" are frequently employed. The material is placed in a perforated cage or "basket," which is enclosed in an outer casing, and when the cage is rapidly rotated by suitable gearing, the liquid portions are forced out into the external casing.

FIMBRIA, GAIUS FLAVIUS (d. 84 B.C.), Roman soldier and a violent partisan of Marius. He was sent to Asia in 86 B.C. as legate to L. Valerius Flaccus, but quarrelled with him and was dismissed. Taking advantage of the absence of Flaccus at Chalcedon and the discontent aroused by his avarice and severity, Fimbria stirred up a revolt and slew Flaccus at Nicomedia. He then assumed the command of the army and obtained several successes against Mithradates, whom he shut up in Pitane on the coast of Aeolis, and would undoubtedly have captured him had Lucullus co-operated with the fleet. Fimbria treated most cruelly all the people of Asia who had revolted from Rome or sided with Sulla. Having gained admission to Ilium by declaring that, as a Roman, he was friendly, he massacred the inhabitants and burnt the place to the ground. But in 84 Sulla crossed over from Greece to Asia, made peace with Mithradates, and turned his arms against Fimbria, who, seeing that there was no chance of escape, committed suicide. His troops were made to serve in Asia till the end of the third Mithradatic War.

See ROME: HISTORY; and arts, on SULLA and MARIUS.

FIMBRIATE (from Lat. _fimbriae_, fringe), a zoological and botanical term, meaning fringed. In heraldry, "fimbriate" or "fimbriated" refers to a narrow edge or border running round a bearing.

FINALE (Ital. for "end"), a term in music for the concluding movement in an instrumental composition, whether symphony, concerto or sonata, and, in dramatic music, the concerted piece which ends each act. Of instrumental finales, the great choral finale to Beethoven's 9th symphony, and of operatic finales, that of Mozart's _Nozze di Figaro_, to the second act, and to the last act of Verdi's _Falstaff_ may be mentioned. In the Wagnerian opera the finale has no place.

FINANCE. The term "finance," which comes into English through French, in its original meaning denoted a payment (_finatio_). In the later middle ages, especially in Germany, it acquired the sense of usurious or oppressive dealing with money and capital. The specialized use of the word as equivalent to the management of the public expenditure and receipts first became prominent in France during the 16th century and quickly spread to other countries. The plural form (_Les Finances_) was particularly reserved for this application, while the singular came to denote business activity in respect to monetary dealings (as in the expression _la haute finance_). For the Germans the phrase "science of finance" (_Finanzwissenschaft_) refers exclusively to the economy of the state. English and American writers are less definite in their employment of the term, which varies with the convenience of the author.

A work on "finance" may deal with the Money Market or the Stock Exchange; it may treat of banking and credit organization, or it may be devoted to state revenue and expenditure, which is on the whole the prevailing sense. The expressions "science of finance" and "public finance" have been suggested as suitable to delimit the last mentioned application. At all events, the broad sense is quite intelligible. "Financial" means what is concerned with business, and the idea of a balance between effort and return is also prominent. In the present article attention will be directed to "public finance"; for the other aspects of the subject reference may be made (_inter alia_) to the following:--BANKS AND BANKING; COMPANY; EXCHANGE; MARKET; STOCK EXCHANGE. See also ENGLISH FINANCE, and the sections on finance under headings of countries.

Finance, regarded as state house-keeping, or "political economy" (see ECONOMICS) in the older sense of the term, deals with (1) the expenditure of the state; (2) state revenues; (3) the balance between expenditure and receipts; (4) the organization which collects and applies the public funds. Each of these large divisions presents a series of problems of which the practical treatment is illustrated in the financial history of the great nations of the world. Thus the amount and character of public expenditure necessarily depends on the functions that the state undertakes to perform--national defence, the maintenance of internal order, and the efficient equipment of the state organization; such are the tasks that all governments have to discharge, and for their cost due provision has to be made. The widening sphere of state activity, so marked a characteristic of modern civilization, involves outlay for what may be best described as "developmental" services. Education, relief of distress, regulation of labour and trade, are duties now in great part performed by public agencies, and their increasing prominence involves augmented expense. The first problem on this side of expenditure is the due balancing of outlay by income. The financier has to "cover" his outlay. There is, further, the duty of establishing a proper proportion between the several forms of expenditure. Not only has there to be a strict control over the total national expense; supervision has to be carried into each department of the state. No one branch of public activity is entitled to make unlimited calls on the state's revenue. The claims of the "expert" require to be carefully scrutinized. The great financiers have made their reputation quite as much by rigorous control over extravagance in expenditure as by dexterity in devising new forms of revenue. Unfortunately they have not been able to reduce their methods to rule. As yet no more definite principle has been discovered than the somewhat obvious one of measuring the proposed items of outlay (1) against each other, (2) against the sacrifice that additional taxation involves. Of almost equal importance is the rule that the utmost return is to be obtained for the given outlay. The canon of _economy_ is as fundamental in regard to public expenditure as it will appear, later, to be in respect to revenue. Just application of the outlay of the state, so that no class receives undue advantage, and the use of public funds for "reproductive," in preference to "unproductive" objects, are evident general principles whose difficulty lies in their application to the circumstances of each particular case.

Far greater progress has been made in the formulation of general canons as to the nature, growth and treatment of the public revenues. Historically, there is, first, the tendency towards increase in state income to balance the advance in outlay. A second general feature is the relative decline of the receipts from state property and industries in contrast to the expansion of taxation. Regarded as an organized system, the body of receipts has to be made conformable to certain general conditions. Thus there should be revenue sufficient to meet the public requirements. Otherwise the financial organization has failed in one of its essential purposes. In order continuously to attain this end, the revenue must be flexible, or, as is often said, elastic enough to vary in response to pressure. Frequently recurring deficits are, in themselves, a condemnation of the methods under which they are found. Again, the rule of "economy" in raising revenue, or, in other words, taking as little as possible from the contributors over and above what the state receives, holds good for the whole and for each part of public revenue. In like manner the principle of formal justice has the same claim in respect to revenue as to expenditure. No class of person should bear more than his or its proper share. In fact the special maxims usually placed under the head of taxation have really a wider scope as governing the whole financial system. The recognition of even the most elementary rules has been a very slow process, as the course of financial history abundantly proves. Until the 18th century no scientific treatment of financial problems was attained, though there had been great advances on the administrative side.

A brief description of the historical evolution of the earlier financial forms will be the most effective illustration of this statement. The theory of well-organized public finance is also discussed under TAXATION and NATIONAL DEBT.

The earliest forms of public revenue are those obtained from the property of the chief or ruler. Land, cattle and slaves are the principal kinds of wealth, and they are all constituents of the king's revenue; enforced work contributed by members of the community, and the furnishing commodities on requisition, further aid in the maintenance of the primitive state. Financial organization makes its earliest appearance in the great Eastern monarchies, in which tribute was regularly collected and the oldest and most general form of taxation--that levied on the produce of land--was established. In its normal shape this impost consisted in a given proportion of the yield, or of certain portions of the yield, of the soil; one-fourth as in India, one-fifth as in Egypt, or two separate levies of a tenth as in Palestine, are examples of what may from the last instance be called the "tithe" system. Dues of various kinds were gradually added to the land revenue, until, as in the later Egyptian monarchy, the forms of revenue reached a bewildering complexity. But no Eastern state advanced beyond the condition generally characterized as the "patrimonial," i.e. an organization on the model of the household. The part played by money economy was small, and it is noticeable that the revenues were collected by the monarch's servants, the farming out of taxes being completely unknown. Tribute, however, was paid by subject communities as a whole, and was collected by them for transmission to the conquerors.

Ancient Greek.

A much higher stage was reached in the financial methods of the Greek states, or more correctly speaking of Athens, the best-known specimen of the class. Instead of the comparatively simple expedients of the barbarian monarchies, as indicated above, the Athenian city state by degrees developed a rather complex revenue system. Some of the older forms are retained. The city owned public land which was let on lease and the rents were farmed out by auction. A specially valuable property of Athens was the possession of the silver mines at Laurium, which were worked on lease by slave labour. The produce, at first distributed amongst the citizens, was later a part of the state income, and forms the subject of some of the suggestions respecting the revenue in the treatise formerly ascribed to Xenophon. The reverence that attached to the precious metals caused undue exaltation of the services rendered by this property.

One of the characteristics of the ancient state was its extensive control over the persons and property of its citizens. In respect to finance this authority was strikingly manifested in the burdens imposed on wealthy citizens by the requirements of the "liturgies" ([Greek: leitourgiai]), which consisted in the provision of a chorus for theatrical performances, or defraying the expenses of the public games, or, finally, the equipment of a ship, "the trierarchy," which was economically and politically the most important. Athenian statesmanship in the time of Demosthenes was gravely exercised to make this form of contribution more effective. The grouping into classes and the privilege of exchanging property, granted to the contributor against any one whom he believed entitled to take his place, are marks of the defective economic and financial organization of the age.

Amongst taxes strictly so called were the market dues or tolls, which in some cases approximated to excise duties, though in their actual mode of levy they were closely similar to the _octrois_ of modern times. Of greater importance were the customs duties on imports and exports. These at the great period of Athenian history were only 2%. The prohibition of export of corn was an economic rather than a financial provision. In the treatment of her subject allies Athens was more rigorous, general import and export duties of 5% being imposed on their trade. The high cost of carriage, and the need of encouraging commerce in a community relying on external sources for its food supply, help to explain the comparatively low rates adopted. Neither as financial nor as protective expedients were the custom duties of classical societies of much importance.

Direct taxation received much greater expansion. A special levy on the class of resident aliens ([Greek: metoikton]), probably paralleled by a duty on slaves, was in force. A far more important source of revenue was the general tax on property ([Greek: eisphora]), which according to one view existed as early as the time of Solon, who made it a part of his constitutional system. Modern inquiry, however, tends towards the conclusion that it was under the stress of the Peloponnesian War that this impost was introduced (428 B.C.). At first it was only levied at irregular intervals; afterwards, in 378 B.C., it became a permanent tax based on elaborate valuation under which the richer members paid on a larger quota of their capital; in the case of the wealthiest class the taxable quota was taken as one-fifth, smaller fractions being adopted for those belonging to the other divisions. The assessment ([Greek: timema]) included all the property of the contributor, whose accuracy in making full returns was safeguarded by the right given to other citizens to proceed against him for fraudulent under-valuation. A further support was provided in the reform of 378 B.C. by the establishment of the symmories, or groups of tax-paying citizens; the wealthier members of each group being responsible for the tax payments of all the members.

The scanty and obscure references to finance, and to economic matters generally, in classical literature do not elucidate all the details of the system; but the analogies of other countries, e.g. the mode of levying the _taille_ in 18th century France and the "tenth and fifteenth" in medieval England, make it tolerably plain that in the 4th century B.C. the Athenian state had developed a mode of taxation on property which raised those questions of just distribution and effective valuation that present themselves in the latest tax systems of the modern world. Taken together with the liturgies, the "eisphora" placed a very heavy burden on the wealthier citizens, and this financial pressure accounts in great part for the hostility of the rich towards the democratic constitution that facilitated the imposition of graduated taxation and super-taxes--to use modern terms--on the larger incomes. The normal yield of the property tax is reported as 60 talents (L14,400); but on special occasions it reached 200 talents (L48,000), or about one-sixth of the total receipts.

On the administrative side also remarkable advances were made by the entrusting of military expenditure to the "generals," and in the 4th century B.C. by the appointment of an administrator whose duty it was to distribute the revenue of the state under the directions of the assembly. The absence of settled public law and the influence of direct democracy made a complete ministry of finance impossible.

The Athenian "hegemony" in its earlier and later phases had an important financial side. The confederacy of Delos made provision for the collection of a revenue ([Greek: phoros]) from the members of the league, which was employed at first for defence against Persian aggression, but afterwards was at the disposal of Athens as the ruling state. The annual collection of 460 talents (L110,400) shows sufficiently the magnitude of the league.

Too little is known of the financial methods of the other Greek states and of the Macedonian kingdoms to allow of any definite account of their position. In the latter, particularly in Egypt, the methods of the earlier rulers probably survived. Their finance, like their social life generally, exhibited a blending of Hellenic and barbarian elements. The older land-taxes were probably accompanied by import dues and taxes on property.

Roman.

In the infancy of the Roman republic its revenues were of the kind usual in such communities. The public land yielded receipts which may indifferently be regarded as rents or taxes; the citizens contributed their services or commodities, and dues were raised on certain articles coming to market. With the progress of the Roman dominion the financial organization grew in extent. In order to meet the cost of the early wars a special contribution from property (_tributum ex censu_) was levied at times of emergency, though it was in some cases regarded as an advance to be repaid when the occasion of expense was over. Owing to the great military successes, and the consequent increase of the other sources of revenue, it became feasible to suspend the _tributum_ in 167 B.C., and it was not again levied till after the death of Julius Caesar. From this date the expenses of the Roman state "were undisguisedly supported by the taxation of the provinces." Neither the state monopolies nor the public land in Italy afforded any appreciable revenue. The other charges that affected Italy were the 5% duty on manumissions, and customs dues on seaborne imports. But with the acquisition of the important provinces of Sicily, Spain and Africa, the formation of a tax system based on the tributes of the dependencies became possible. To a great extent the pre-existing forms of revenue were retained, but were gradually systematized. In legal theory the land of conquered communities passed into the ownership of the Roman state; in practice a revenue was obtained through land taxes in the form of either tithes (_decumae_) or money payments (_stipendia_). To the latter were adjoined capitation and trade taxes (the _tributum capitis_). For pasture land a special rent was paid. In some provinces (e.g. Sicily) payment in produce was preferred, as affording the supply needed for the free distribution of corn at Rome.

The great form of indirect taxation consisted in the customs dues (_portoria_), which were collected at the provincial boundaries and varied in amount, though the maximum did not exceed 5%. Under the same head were included the town dues (or _octrois_). Further, the local administration was charged on the district concerned, and requisitions for the public service were frequently made on the provincial communities. Supplies of grain, ships and timber for military use were often demanded.