培根 《学术的演进》
弗朗西斯·培根（1561—1626）
弗朗西斯·培根（1561—1626）是英国文艺复兴时期的一个杰出人才。他既是科学哲学家，又是散文家，还是杰出的律师。他21岁就被选为下院议员，官至大理院院长，封为勋爵。在英国文学史中，他是文学家中官位最显赫的人物。他又是出色的法官，在他65年的生涯中有45年从事法律工作。他对英国的科学、文化和文学的发展作出了举足轻重的贡献，却又因受贿被议会弹劾去职。他是一个优点和缺点都突出的人物，一个充满着矛盾的人物。英国著名诗人蒲柏称培根为“最聪明、最出色、最卑鄙的人。”所谓“卑鄙”，是因为他受了贿。马克思称他是“英国唯物主义的真正始祖”。本·琼森为他的口才所倾倒。在评论培根的演说时，他说道：“若论说话干净，准确，有分量，最不空洞，最没有废话，谁也比不过他。”弥尔顿、伏尔泰、歌德等文学巨子对他都赞许备至。
他的贡献主要在两个方面：科学和文学。作为自然科学的哲学家，他与中世纪的经院派决裂，首次把自然科学分门别类，并用新的归纳法向传统的权威挑战，为现代实验科学开道。他所写的《学术的演进》（The Advancement of Learning，1605）和《新工具》（Novum Organum, 1620）对科学作出了贡献。《学术的演进》指明了科学的正确思想方法和研究方法。《新工具》则痛斥“偶像”，亦即虚妄或错误的思想习惯，提出了归纳法这一崭新的研究方法。
培根又是一个杰出的散文家。他的《随笔》（The Essays）以其绝妙的散文为英国乃至世界的散文树立了楷模。他有科学家的准确性和逻辑性，律师和法官的雄辩，语言大师的清晰、生动的语言。他把这些优点融合在他的散文中，就形成了他特有的文体风格。他的文章气势宏伟雄浑，语言生动简约。他的多数作品都是用拉丁文写的，即便是原先用英语写的作品，他也译成了拉丁文，因为他认为拉丁文将会成为永存不朽的语言。
随笔是文艺复兴时期新涌现的一种文学形式。虽然1580年法国人蒙田（Montaigne）比培根早17年首次推出这一散文形式，但是培根的随笔却别具一格。蒙田的随笔悠然从容如流水，培根的随笔则庄严睿智，极富哲理，颇似古罗马哲学家、戏剧家塞内加（Seneca）的风格。培根是英国随笔的首创者，英国18世纪初的散文家如约瑟夫·艾迪生（Joseph Addison）和理查德·斯梯尔（Richard Steele）等都效仿他的随笔风格。
他写的《随笔》初版时仅有短文10篇，经过1612年、1625年两次增补，最后收录短文58篇。这些文章的题材广泛，或谈处世之道，或议成功之秘诀，或说读书、婚姻、娱乐。无论是谈读书、美或高位，或探讨哲理，或议论人生，妙句警语处处可见，且文章短小精悍，甚多卓识，读来让人为之倾倒。他论述起来雄辩滔滔，却又反对舞文弄墨，更不因词害意。
内容提要
《学术的演进》写于1605年。此时，培根与詹姆士一世的关系密切。他以此文献给国王，目的是想以此唤起王室对科学发展的支持。此处摘录该文中的一部分，主要是谈诗。
培根首先对诗和历史作了区分。他认为诗享受极大的自由，因为诗不需要遵循任何自然法则；诗需要想象。历史必须客观地叙述事实，而诗却可以杜撰或虚构人物、事件和行为，并且比历史所叙述的人和事更生动、更有力。诗能给读者以高尚、道德和愉快，因此诗能起到纯洁人的心灵的作用。
他把诗分为三类。第一类是叙述性的，这类诗是对历史的模仿。第二类是描绘性的，它采用意象。第三类是隐喻性的或寓言式的，如《伊索寓言》。这三类诗又可分为神学诗和异教诗。他认为诗是学术的第三部分，在表达感情、激情、堕落、习俗等方面优于哲学，而在机智和雄辩方面也不比演说逊色。
他认为，历史和诗分属两个不同的领域。诗反映主观世界，而历史则反映客观世界。他说：“诗能按人的愿望把事物的本质呈现给读者，而理性却让人遵循事物的本质。”培根同意锡德尼的观点，认为诗创造一个比现实世界更美好的世界，因为诗能表达人们的愿望，讲述人们的经历，给人以道德教诲，让人看到世界美好的一面。
Sir Francis Bacon (1561—1626)
The Advancement of Learning
Poesy is a part of learning in measure of words for the most part restrained, but in all other points extremely licensed, and doth truly refer to the imagination, which, being not tied to the laws of matter, may at pleasure join that which nature hath severed, and sever that which nature hath joined, and so make unlawful matches and divorces of things: "Pictoribus atque poetis, etc."
It is taken in two senses in respect of words or matter. In the first sense it is but a character of style, and belongeth to arts of speech, and is not pertinent for the present. In the latter, it is, as hath been said, one of the principal portions of learning, and is nothing else but feigned history, which may be styled as well in prose as in verse.
The use of this feigned history hath been to give some shadow of satisfaction to the mind of man in those points wherein the nature of things doth deny it, the world being in proportion inferior to the soul; by reason whereof there is agreeable to the spirit of man a more ample greatness, a more exact goodness, and a more absolute variety than can be found in the nature of things. Therefore, because the acts or events of true history have not that magnitude which satisfieth the mind of man, poesy feigneth acts and events greater and more heroical; because true history propoundeth the successes and issues of actions not so agreeable to the merits of virtue and vice, therefore poesy feigns them more just in retribution and more according to revealed providence; because true history representeth actions and events more ordinary and less interchanged, therefore poesy endueth them with more rareness and more unexpected and alternative variations: so as it appeareth that poesy serveth and confereth to magnanimity, morality, and to delectation. And therefore it was ever thought to have some participation of divineness, because it doth raise and erect the mind, by submitting the shows of things to the desires of the mind, whereas reason doth buckle and bow the mind unto the nature of things. And we see that by these insinuations and congruities with man's nature and pleasure, joined also with the agreement and consort it hath with music, it hath had access and estimation in rude times and barbarous regions, where other learning stood excluded.
The division of poesy which is aptest in the propriety thereof (besides those divisions which are common unto it with history, as feigned chronicles, feigned lives, and the appendices of history, as feigned epistles, feigned orations, and the rest) is into poesy narrative, representative, and allusive. The narrative is a mere imitation of history with the excesses before remembered, choosing for subject commonly wars and love, rarely state, and sometimes pleasure or mirth. Representative is as a visible history, and is an image of actions as if they were present, as history is of actions in nature as they are, that is past; allusive, or parabolical, is a narration applied only to express some special purpose or conceit: which latter kind of parabolical wisdom was much more in use in the ancient times, as by the fables of Aesop, and the brief sentences of the seven, and the use of hieroglyphics may appear. And the cause was for that it was then of necessity to express any point of reason which was more sharp or subtle than the vulgar in that manner, because men in those times wanted both variety of examples and subtlety of conceit: and as hieroglyphics were before letters, so parables were before arguments: and nevertheless now and at all times they do retain much life and vigor, because reason cannot be so sensible, nor examples so fit.
But there remaineth yet another use of poesy parabolical opposite to that which we last mentioned; for that tendeth to demonstrate and illustrate that which is taught or delivered, and this other to retire and obscure it: that is, when the secrets and mysteries of religion, policy, or philosophy, are involved in fables or parables. Of this in divine poesy we see the use is authorized. In heathen poesy we see the exposition of fables doth fall out sometimes with great felicity, as in the fable that the giants being overthrown in their way against the gods, the earth their mother in revenge thereof brought forth fame:
Illam terra parens ira irritata deorem,
Extremam, ut perhibent, Caeo Enceladoque sororem
Progenuit:
expounded that when princes and monarchs have suppressed actual and open rebels, then the malignity of people, which is the mother of rebellion, doth bring forth libels and slanders, and taxations of the states, which is of the same kind with rebellion, but more feminine: so in the fable that the rest of the gods having conspired to bind Jupiter, Pallas called Briareus with his hundred hands to his aid, expounded that monarchies need not fear any curbing of their absoluteness by mighty subjects, as long as by wisdom they keep the hearts of the people, who will be sure to come in on their side: so in the fable that Achilles was brought up under Chyron the centaur, who was part a man and part a beast, expounded ingenuously, but corruptly, by Machiavelli that it belongeth to the education and discipline of princes to know as well how to play the part of the lion in violence and the fox in guile, as of the man in virtue and justice. Nevertheless in many the like encounters, I do rather think that the fable was first and the exposition devised than that the moral was first and thereupon the fable framed. For I find it was an ancient vanity in Chrysippus that troubled himself with great contention to fasten the assertions of the Stoics upon the fictions of the ancient poets: but yet that all the fables and fictions of the poets were but pleasure and not figure, I interpose no opinion. Surely of those poets which are now extant, even Homer himself (notwithstanding he was made a kind of scripture by the later schools of the Grecians) yet I should without any difficulty pronounce, that his fables had no such inwardness in his own meaning: but what they might have, upon a more original tradition, is not easy to affirm, for he was not the inventor of many of them. In this third part of learning which is poesy, I can report no deficience. For being as a plant that cometh of the lust of the earth, without a formal seed, it hath sprung up and spread abroad, more than any other kind: but to ascribe unto it that which is due for the expressing of affections, passions, corruptions and customs, we are beholding to poets more than to the philosophers' works, and for wit and eloquence not much less than to orators' harangues.
“Pictoribus atque poetis, etc.”：英译文为：“To painters and poets, etc.”，引自贺拉斯（Horace）的《诗艺》（Art of Poetry）。
the seven：公元前6世纪希腊的7位贤人（seven sages or Seven Wise Men of Greece：Thales【泰利斯】，Solon【梭伦】，Bias【拜厄斯】，Pittacus【皮特克斯】，Periander【佩里安德】，Chilon【芝隆】and Cleobolus【克里奥波勒斯】）。
Illam ...Progenuit.：英译文为“Angered by the Gods, Mother Earth, it is said, gave birth to the last one, sister to Caeus and Enceladus.”引自《埃涅阿斯纪》。
Jupiter, Pallas called Briareus...：Jupiter（朱庇特），罗马诸神中最高的神，即希腊神话中的宙斯（Zeus）。Pallas（帕拉斯），希腊神话中智慧女神雅典娜（Athena）的朋友。雅典娜无意中杀死了帕拉斯。为了纪念帕拉斯，她把自己的名字改为Pallas Athena。Briareus（布里阿柔斯），亦作Briareos，希腊神话中的百手巨人。
Chyron the centaur：希腊神话中的半人半马怪。
Machiavelli：马基雅弗利（Niccolò Machiavelli，1469—1527），文艺复兴时期意大利政治哲学家。他主张为了国家的利益，政府可以采用各种不正当的手段。他的《君主论》一书最为有名。
Chrysippus：克律西帕斯，公元前3世纪希腊禁欲主义哲学家。
