osophical studies. In the succeeding dramas the idea of freedom has a moral connotation, and signifies, as already explained, the autonomy of reason; the tragedy in them is the outcome of the failure of human nature to perfect such an ordering of society in which the reasonable self-determination of the individual shall be possible.

Goethe's remark that "Through all Schiller's works runs the idea of freedom" we have seen to hold good of both his philosophical essays and his poetic creations. But when we consider his life we recognise again the same source of action; few men possess the ardour and intensity of feeling he possessed, he had in him stuff sufficient to make a hundred anarchists of, but his deep conviction of the superior power of reasonable will enabled him to give shape and direction to this brute force. The life of Schiller explains to some extent his enormous popularity among the less sophisticated of his nation; it enables them to corroborate the sincerity of his denunciations in tyrannos. The humble artisan will have heard at least snatches of his poet's biography; he will have been told how the father prayed to the Being of beings that his son might gain the end which the common fate of poverty had withheld from himself; how in his youth it seemed as if the son were destined to a life of servitude but how, by an almost superhuman effort he wrenched himself loose from enslavement under the arbitrary and debauched ruler of his country; how then, severed from all who were near and dear to him, he was compelled to taste the bitterness of disappointed hopes, to live in concealment, sometimes not knowing whence to procure the next day's food; how he remained undaunted by adversity and how his confidence in his power to fulfil his true mission never wavered; how at length a kindly hand was extended and under the genial warmth of friendship the fountain of poetry within him again began to flow; how he utilised this respite from dire necessitousness to prepare himself for a vocation in life consistent with his endowments; how the most insidious of diseases simply redoubled his energy that he might wrench from a shattered physique strength enough to complete the work he had undertaken. That so much fierce passion should

at times have driven him to actions which can find a rubric only in a somewhat comprehensive moral code, is but natural. But his career as a whole represents an ideal of unswerving perseverence, such as has seldom been realised; no smiling fortune evened his path, every step he took signified some obstacle overcome and the one constant motive was unselfish devotion to duty. It is not strange that the personality of Schiller should fascinate the doer of honest work, only such a man. can indeed fully appreciate what this career involves. There is in it so much that is identical with the destiny of the dependent labourer wherever he is found; the power of one man to physically enslave numbers of his fellows is now-a-days a reality almost as much as in Schiller's day; the superiority is derived now less than formally from that hazy mysticism which was content to regard the possessor of an ancient title as a divinely privileged being; yet the institutions of society are still imperfect enough to permit unscrupulous egoism to oppress those who are handicapped by honesty in their aspirations. The extent of this abuse of power is greater than many unsuspecting souls who have scarcely weathered life's storms are willing to believe; it is a dire reality for millions. and if these millions are not utterly destitute of self-respect they cannot be expected to listen to sermons on the virtue of contentment; they have a feeling, and rightly too, that contentment in face of admitted imperfection far from being a virtue is the greatest vice. Let us hope that whenever a Gessler arises the well-aimed shaft of a Tell will not be lacking to do him justice. Such discontent will always be present where man is clearly conscious of his worth as a human being. it will always accompany the feeling of the superiority of man's moral nature. The respect for man as man, and the individual's respect for himself are familiar enough to thinkers; but it is not sufficient that it shall remain simply a system of philosophy, it must be so incorporated into man's emotional and rational constitution that his whole being revolts against any degrading of it. Nor must this transformation be confined to the sphere of individual emotions and will; it must so affect the general will that society will not tolerate any other treatment of its members than that which regards

them as ends in themselves. Such is the supreme merit of Schiller's art; it presents to us in creatures of flesh and blood, a symbol of the divine in man and it does so in such a manner than this becomes a palpable reality to the multitude. It does not try to pacify man by means of a pleasant dream, like Romanticism; it does not like pessimism, teach apathetic resignation to what is necessarily wretched; it does not like materialism approximate man more and more to a natural product. Rather it is a healthy corrective of all these and has contributed in no small measure to that revival of the consciousness of human dignity, which, although often disfigured by vulgarities, is yet a characteristic mark of our own time.

E. W. PATCHETT.

MECHANICAL MEASUREMENT OF TIME.

THE BALANCE.

In the development and progress of modern ideas it is necessary that we have, not only astronomical clocks, in fixed observatories, that shall mark the passage of time with extreme precision, it is also necessary that time-pieces of approximately equal qualities shall be so constructed as to be carried from place to place. The whole present-day theory of British navigation may be said to rest upon the ability of the navigator to know, at any moment of the day, just what time is indicated by the mean time clock at the Royal Observatory at Greenwich. We say British navigators, as French navigators would naturally go by the clock of their own national observatory at Paris; and similarly for other countries.

The ship-chronometer, as it is called, is a superior clock which is intended and supposed to keep Greenwich mean time, and which is carried about over the seas in the ship to which it belongs. Of course many ships sailed over the great oceans before the invention of the chronometer, and many might do so to-day without a chronometer on board. But such navigation would be not only troublesome and onerous, it would be also dangerous and uncertain, as it was in former times.

The navigator must, of necessity and for the sake of safety, know his place upon the ocean from day to day if he is to escape the hidden dangers that beset his course. The finding of his latitude is, in fair weather, a matter of no great difficulty. But it is otherwise with respect to his longitude. Without a chronometer various observations and long and tedious calculations become necessary-things which are carried out with difficulty and with ever-present liability to mistakes. But with the chronometer it consists of little beyond marking the reading of the time-piece at the moment when the sun has reached the highest point in his daily course.

So great, in fact, is the importance of the chronometer in the practice of modern navigation that the British Government has from time to time given large sums for the improvement

of the instrument. And one of the functions of the Royal Observatory is to test and regulate chronometers before their going to sea.

Then again, every watch whether carried in the pocket, or pinned to a lady's dress, or hidden away in a bracelet, is but a portable clock. And nowadays watches and public turret clocks are so plentiful and indicate the passing time so well that it is difficult to see why whole neighborhoods should still be disturbed by the unnecessary noise due to the rancorous clanging and ringing of church bells.

The watch of superior manufacture is, in fact, a pocket chronometer and indicates time with a wonderful degree of accuracy, though not sufficient for the best work in astronomy or possibly navigation.

Of necessity the governor of a portable clock must be such as to be independent of its position or orientation, or, in other words, it must do its work equally well in any plane in which it may happen to be placed. The balance fills these conditions, and is accordingly the universal governor for all kinds of portable time-pieces.

The balance may have a variety of forms, but in all cases it must be rigidly fixed to an axis which turns upon pivots at its ends. And thus the motion of the balance, unlike that of the pendulum, is always accompanied by friction.

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Pivot

The oldest form of balance, and the first form of the clock governor, was a straight bar fastened at its middle point to a pivoted axis about which the whole could turn at pleasure, and remain in any position given to it, as represented in the upper figure. To un increase the momentum, small weights were hung from the parts of the bar, which being notched along the top retained the weights, w, w, in any position at which they were placed.

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Pivot

w

On account of the weights being loose the balance of the first figure could be used only with the axis upright, and hence only on stationary clocks; and this is the form which it took in the old clocks of DeWyck's time.