Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/176

 166 F I L F I L In many other matters of high public concern, his official course, as indicated by his appointments, the recommenda tions in his messages, and the projects which he devised, was characterized by sound discretion, by humane promptings, and practical wisdom, His advice, however, even on these matters, was not always followed by Congress. That body having approved a plan for the extension of the Capitol, the president, on July 4, 1851, laid the corner-stone of the new edifice, Daniel Webster being the orator of the occasion. In the same year he interposed promptly and effectively in thwarting the projects of the &quot; filibusters,&quot; under Lopez, for the invasion of Cuba. Commodore Perry s expedition to Japan, that of Lieutenant Lynch to Africa, and that of Einggold to the Chinese Seas, with the exploration of the valley of the Amazon by Herndon and Gibbon, may be referred to as engaging the executive ability and wide-fore thought of the president. His term closed March 4, 1853. In the preceding autumn he had been an unsuccessful can didate for nomination for the presidency by the Whig National Convention, and he yielded his place to Franklin Pierce. Three weeks before the close of his term his wife died in Washington, and he quietly returned, with a son and a daughter, to private life in Buffalo. In 1854, be travelled extensively through the southern and western States, and in 1855-6 he visited Europe, moving from place to place in a quiet and unostentatious way, but receiving much courteous attention. He declined the proffered honour of D.C.L. from Oxford. While in Rome he was informed of his nomination for the presidency by the &quot; Native American &quot; party, the nominees of the other parties being Buchanan and Fremont. In 1858 he married Mrs Caroline M Intosh of Albany, a lady of fortune and culture. Retiring to his home in Buffalo, he enjoyed a studious retirement among his books and friends, taking no public share in political affairs. He took great interest iu the Buffalo Historical Society, of which he was the president. His life closed March 8, 1874, in his seventy- fifth year. All who knew him in any relatioii accorded in regarding him as an upright and conscientious man, blameless, loving simple ways, and heartily devoted to the best interests of his country. (a. E. E.) FILM. See CAPILLARY ACTION and OPTICS. FILMER, SIR ROBERT, a writer of the 17th century, remarkable for his singular political theory, which deserves notice on account of the great attention which it excited, was the son of Sir Edward Filmer of East Sutton in Kent. He studied at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he matri culated in 1604. His death has been fixed at widely different dates, but of these the most probable is 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 tha tradition that Noah sailed up the Mediter ranean 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 &quot;by the secret will of God may unjustly&quot; attain to power which he has not inherited appeared to Filmer in no way to alter the nature of the power so obtained, for &quot; there is, and always shall be continued to the end of the world, a natural right of a supreme father over every multitude.&quot; The king is per fectly free from all human control. He cannot be bound by the acts of his predecessors, for which he is not re sponsible ; nor by his own, for &quot; impossible it is in nature that a man should give a law unto himself &quot; 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 &quot; perform and consent to the ordinances of parliament,&quot; 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 (16 16), an attack upon a treatise on monarchy by Nicholas Hutton, which 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); and his Observations upon Mr llobbes s Leviathan, Mr Milton against Salmasius, and H. Grotius De Jure Eelli et Pads, concerning the Originall of Government (1652). Filmer s theory, owing to the circumstances of the time, obtained a recognition which it is nowdifficult 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 remark able 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. FILTER, an arrangement for the separation of impurities from liquids, by passage through porous material. The filtering process is common in nature. The clearness of spring water is due to it ; for such water generally comes from a considerable depth in the ground (as appears, e.g., from its equable temperature throughout the year) ; and having traversed a variety of porous strata, it has under gone a straining action, producing the beautiful trans parency we observe. This does not, of course, represent absolute purity, for the liquid retains in solution various substances acquired by contact with the strata through which it has percolated. The operation of filtration is extensively practised in purification of water, on a large scale for supply of towns and cities (now an important branch of civil engineering), and on a small scale for domestic purposes, and for the use of ships on a long voyage, &c. It is also a valued method in chemistry and the arts. The mechanical action of straining, by which all particles larger than the interstices of the porous material are arrested, is one important function of filters, and it used to be commonly represented as their only function. They may act, however, in other ways to purify water. Not to speak of the further mechanical actions of subsidence on upper surfaces of particles of the filtering medium, and lateral attraction and adhesion of suspended matter (which doubtless occur in some measure), it is an important fact, now well ascertained, that a filter may separate from water