FORE:Two philosophers only can be named who, in modern times, have rivalled or approached the moral dignity of Socrates. Like him, Spinoza realised his own ideal of a good and happy life. Like him, Giordano Bruno, without a hope of future recompense, chose death rather than a life unfaithful to the highest truth, and death, too, under its most terrible form, not the painless extinction by hemlock inflicted in a heathen city, but the agonising dissolution intended by Catholic love to serve as a foretaste of everlasting fire. Yet with neither can the parallel be extended further; for Spinoza, wisely perhaps, refused to face the storms which a public profession and propagation of his doctrine would have raised; and the wayward career of Giordano Bruno was not in keeping with its heroic end. The complex and distracting conditions in which their lot was cast did not permit them to attain that statuesque completeness which marked the classic age of Greek life and thought. Those times developed a wilder energy, a more stubborn endurance, a sweeter purity than any that the ancient world had known. But until the scattered elements are recombined in a still loftier harmony, our sleepless thirst for perfection can be satisfied at one spring alone. Pericles must remain the ideal of statesmanship, Pheidias of artistic production, and Socrates of philosophic power.Draught, or the taper required to allow patterns to be drawn readily, is another of those indefinite conditions in pattern-making that must be constantly decided by judgment and experience. It is not uncommon to find rules for the draught of patterns laid down in books, but it would be difficult to find such rules applied. The draught may be one-sixteenth of an inch to each foot of depth, or it may be one inch to a foot of depth, or there may be no draught whatever. Any rule, considered aside from specified conditions, will only confuse a learner. The only plan to understand the proper amount of draught for patterns is to study the matter in connection with patterns and foundry operations.