"Knowledge is power"
Francis Bacon
（Francis Bacon，1561-1626)
Viscount Saint-Albon, with a more pretentious title, should be called "the light of science" and "the tongue of law".
—Bacon's Epitaph
Bacon's book is more self-cultivation than any other book, and he is one of the geniuses sent by God to teach us how to be successful and how to make great. He convinces people that genius is not a gift from heaven, but by hard work, and that labor can do all miracles.
- Holler
Lord Bacon was a poet, whose language had a sweet and solemn rhythm that satisfies our senses, just as the almost superhuman wisdom of his philosophy satisfies our intellect, and the tone of his writings, with its magnificence, strikes at the limits of your heart, and pours out with your heart to the cosmic universe with which it resonates forever.
- Shelley
Francis Bacon was the founder of modern induction and the pioneer of the logical organization of scientific research procedures, so that although his philosophy was not perfect in many places, he still occupies an important place in the end. (Russell, A History of Western Philosophy)
He has seen the world, dealt with state affairs, dealt with practical problems with his own hands, observed all kinds of people, all kinds of environments, all kinds of relationships, and once influenced those who are educated, thoughtful and even study philosophy. (Hegel, Lectures on the History of Philosophy)
He was hailed as "the head of all empirical philosophy."
Marx called him "the true progenitor of English materialism and of the whole of modern experimental science".
Re-read Bacon and rediscover our meaning to the world.
1. Bacon's Essays
The "Analects" of the West, the pioneering work of British essay literature
One of the "20 Best Books of Human History" (1985 Life Magazine) and was included in the recommended list of the American Good Reading Guide in 1985
- If a person's heart is motivated by charity, destiny is the destiny, and truth is the axis of the earth, then that person's life is truly heaven on earth.
- The wise man uses knowledge, because learning itself does not teach people how to use it, but this way of use is a kind of intelligence beyond learning, which can only be obtained by observation and experience.
The essays mainly contain short essays of an argumentative nature, covering politics, economics, religion, love, marriage, friendship, art, education, ethics and other aspects. Among them, "On Reading", "On Truth", "On Jealousy", and "On Death" are written concisely and beautifully, with thorough reasoning and aphorisms, which contain the essence of Bacon's thoughts, and are his famous chapters and representative works of Bacon's literature.
The purpose of reading for learning is to entertain, decorate and increase knowledge.
The main use of learning in entertainment is to live in seclusion, in decoration to learn the use of rhetoric, and in the long talent to learn the use of knowledge is to judge and deal with affairs. For the experienced man is good at doing, and may be able to judge individual things one by one, but the best general discussion and planning and arrangement of affairs come from the learned. It is lazy to spend too much time on learning, it is false to use learning too much as decoration, and it is a scholar's quirk to judge things completely according to the rules of learning. Learning is tempered by nature, and it is itself tempered by experience; the talent of people is like wild flowers, they need to be pruned by knowledge, and the knowledge itself, if it is not limited by experience, is too general. The deceitful despise learning, the foolish envy it, and the wise use it, because learning itself does not teach how to use it, and this way of application is a kind of intelligence beyond learning, which can only be obtained by observation and experience. Do not read for the sake of argumentation, do not read for the sake of faith and blind obedience, do not speak for the sake of speech and argumentation, and do not aim to be able to weigh the importance and examine the reasoning. There are books to be tasted, some to be swallowed, and a few books to be chewed and digested, that is to say, some books can be read in their entirety, but not too carefully, and a few books should be read in their entirety, diligently, and attentively. Some books may be read by a delegate, and a section may be made for me, but this method is only suitable for secondary arguments and secondary books, otherwise the books recorded are as tasteless as distilled water. Reading enriches, talks makes you agile, and writing and note-taking make you precise. Therefore, if a man writes very little, he must have a good memory, if he rarely talks to people, then he must have great quickness, and if he reads very little, then he must have a great cunning to be able to know what he knows. History makes people wise, poetry makes people wise, mathematics makes people sophisticated, naturalism makes people profound, ethics makes people dignified, and logic and rhetoric make people good at argumentation. "Learning changes temperament". No, there is no mental defect that cannot be remedied by considerable learning: just as all kinds of physical diseases are treated with proper exercise. "Earth" is good for stones and kidneys, archery is good for the chest and lungs, jogging is good for the stomach, horseback riding is good for the mind, and so on. In the same way, if a person is not single-minded, he is better at studying mathematics, because in the basic theory of mathematics, if he is not single-minded at all, he has to start from scratch. If he is not good at discerning similarities and differences, then he would do well to study the works of the scholastic school, because the scholars of this school are people of analysis, and if he is not good at reasoning about the other, he is better at studying the lawyers' files. In this way, there is a special remedy for all kinds of mental defects. The above is an excerpt from the Commercial Press's "Bacon's Essays", translated by Shui Tongtian
2. "The Complete Works of Bacon's Essays"
59 essays full of wisdom and more than 500 cultural notes dedicate the wisdom of Francis Bacon to you
It only takes a few hours to read the Essay from beginning to end, but even after reading it twenty times, you will most likely find that you have missed something. In fact, all of Bacon's writings have this characteristic. There is only one explanation for these qualities, and that is that they provide an inexhaustible source of nourishment for our minds and harmonize with our slackness intelligence. – Scottish philosopher Dugged Stewart
"The Complete Works of Bacon's Essays" is a collection of essays written by the British philosopher and writer Francis Bacon, which contains 59 short essays of an argumentative nature, involving politics, economy, religion, love, marriage, friendship, art, education, ethics and other aspects, containing the essence of Bacon's thoughts. This book is an annotated version with more than 500 annotations, which is a preferred model for leisure reading and literary studies.
- On delay - Luck is like the market, people just need to be restless, often waiting for a low price. Sometimes, however, fortune is like an old woman selling Sybil's book, where the goods are intact at first, and then diminished in succession, but the price is not less, because, as the saying goes, once the time turns to the forehead with hair to grasp, you are left with only a bald head with no hair to grasp. At best, timing is like a jug, with the easy handle to grasp, followed by the hard to grasp body. The greatest wisdom is undoubtedly to choose the right time to do it. When danger seems insignificant, it is no longer insignificant, and people are blinded by danger more often and overwhelmed by danger less. Not only that, but it is best for people to strike preemptively and intercept the danger that is still far away halfway, and they must not wait for a long time and wait for the danger to approach step by step, because if the wait-and-see continues for too long, it is inevitable that there will be times when they will doze off. On the other hand, if you are confused by the shadow that drags too long (as some have done when the low moon hits the enemy's back), if you start firing before the time comes, or if you put on your armor too early and invite danger to come, you will go to the other extreme. Whether the time is ripe or not is always a matter that needs to be carefully considered. Generally speaking, whenever there is a major action, it is reasonable to entrust the beginning to Argos, the hundred-eyed giant, and the end to the hundred-armed giant, Briarus, firstly, with a clear view of the details, and secondly, a swift action. Plutton's helmet helped the shrewd mortal to disappear, and at the same time represented the secrecy of the plan and the speed of execution, because once the hand was made, the speed became the most effective method of secrecy, and the reason was like a speeding rifled bullet, and the eyes could not keep up with its speed. The above is selected from the Complete Works of Bacon's Essays of the Commercial Press, translated by Li Jiazhen
3. "New Tools"
"To provide a new method for the intellect of men" The true ancestor of British materialism and modern experimental science as a whole. -- Marx wanted to open up a new path for understanding, and this new way was never tried and known by the ancients. - Bacon
- There is only one way we teach: to put it simply: we have to direct people to the special thing itself, to the series and order of the special thing.
- Humanity loses its innocence and dominion over nature at the same time as it falls. But these two losses can be partially remedied even in this lifetime: the former by religion and belief, the latter by technology and science.
The book critiques the scholastic view that man is the interpreter of nature. It also analyzes and discusses the inductive method in a comprehensive and detailed manner, which lays the foundation for the inductive logic. The book reflects Bacon's philosophical ideas in a concentrated manner, and is a new worldview and methodology of the new aristocracy and the emerging bourgeoisie during the period of preparation for the bourgeois revolution in England.
4. "New Onishi Island"
One of the early utopian writings of capitalism, the result of Bacon's perennial thinking in British state affairs
For a politician, the reality of things and the times in which he lived are a mirror. - Bacon
This book is an unfinished work of Francis Bacon in his later years, published in 1627, the year after his death. Bacon's picture of his ideal society in this book occupies a special place in his early utopian works. This book has important reference value for our study of the development of socialist thought and the theory of scientific communism. Attached to the book is an article by a Soviet author entitled "The New Great Western Island" by Francis Bacon for research reference.
Bacon's Analects is one of the few "world books" that are not for one nation, but for all nations, not for one age, but for all ages.
——Oliphant Sweaton《培根论说文集·绪论》
1. On parents and children
The joy of parents is kept secret, and so is their sorrow and fear. They rejoiced but could not speak, and they were afraid neither did they speak. Children sweeten toil, but they also make misfortune more bitter. They increase the worries of life, but they reduce the memory of death. The propagation by reproduction is common to animals, but fame, virtue, and merit are peculiar to man, and the fact that the greatest cause comes from heirless men, who strive to express their spiritual image after their physical image is invisible. Therefore, those who have no offspring are the ones who care most about their offspring. The first to establish the family business is the most indulgent to their heirs, who see them not only as the heirs of their own family, but also as the continuation of their own business, and therefore they have the same view of their own heirs as they have made themselves. 2. On youth and old age
A man may be very young in terms of age, but he is very old in terms of hours - if he has not wasted his time. But this is rare. The general situation is that young people are like the "first thoughts" of people, and it is not as wise as "thinking again". In terms of thinking and age, there is also the difference between youth and old age. However, the young are more inventive than the elderly, and the imagination is more easily injected into their brains, as if with divine help. People with high heat and strong desires and sensibilities by nature are not fit to do things before middle age, such as Giulias. Caesar and Septimias.
3. On marriage and celibacy
Those who have wives and children have already given collateral to the god of fate, because wives and children are obstructors to great things, whether they are great good deeds or great evil deeds. Undoubtedly, the best and most meritorious public undertakings come from the unwives- or childless, who can be said to have married and paid the public, both emotionally and financially. However, it seems that those who have children should be most concerned about the future, knowing that they must give their most precious guarantees to the future. Some people live celibate, but their thoughts are limited to themselves and they see the future as irrelevant. And some people think of wives and children as just a few expenses. In particular, some foolish and rich misers pride themselves on having no children, thinking that if they do so, they will appear to be even richer in the eyes of others.
4. On Habits and Education
Machiaville said it well (though what he was saying was ugly), and that the strength of nature and the depth of words were moving, and without the reinforcement of habit, they were unreliable. He was talking about the fact that, in order to accomplish a most sinister conspiracy, a man should not trust the fierceness or determination of the nature of someone to whom he had, but the use of whom he had previously done it himself, and whose hands had been stained with the blood of others. But Machiavelli did not know that there was a beggar Clemen, nor that there was a Haweac, nor that there was a Yorki, nor that there was a Balthasar. Gerald: Yet his law remains unwavering, that nature and words are not as strong as habit. Most of the people's thoughts are in accordance with their desires, and their words and words are mostly in accordance with their knowledge and opinions from outside, but their actions are in accordance with their daily habits.
5. On friendship
"He who likes solitude is either a beast or a god". One of the main effects of friendship is to vent and relax the anger and depression in people's hearts, and these grievances can be caused by all kinds of emotions. Occlusion is the most dangerous in the lower body, as we know, and the same is true in the lower spirit, you can take sarsha to clear the liver, steel to clear the spleen, sulfur bloom to clear the lungs, beaver gum to clear the brain, but there is no medicine that can pass through the heart except for a true friend. To a true friend you can convey your sorrows, joys, fears, hopes, doubts, rebukes, and anything else that weighs on your heart, like a kind of confession outside of church.
6. On Change
Time is the greatest innovator. All biological children are not good-looking at the beginning, and so are all changes, and so are the children of time who change them. That said, just as a start-up is always better than an heir, the initial precedent (if good) is not often imitated. For in the hearts of those who have not yet been reformed, there is a natural motive force for evil, which is strongest in the continuation, and for good, there is a reluctant motive motive, which is the strongest at the beginning. Every medicine is undoubtedly a new thing, and those who do not want to use it must be prepared to deal with new diseases......
7. On vanity
"The fly sat on the axle of the chariot and said, "How much dust I have raised"! In this way, there are delusional people, who, whatever it is, whether it is automatic, or driven by the mighty one, as long as they have the slightest connection with it, they think that these things are completely dependent on their power. He who boasts must be a good partisan, for all boasting is based on comparison. Such a person must also be excessive, because in this way he can support his own boasting. They can't keep secrets, so they have no practical use, and on the contrary, as the French idiom goes, "the sound is loud, the result is small".
8. On health
There is a way to maintain health, and it is not the best that can be done by the laws of medicine. A person's knowledge of what is beneficial and what is harmful to him is the best medicine. But when it comes to making a judgment, it is much safer to say, "This is not in harmony with my body, therefore I want to quit it," than to say, "This seems to be no harm to me, so I want to use it." Because the strength of the talent at the end of the young age can endure many indulgent behaviors, and these behaviors are equivalent to being recorded in the account, and when they reach old age, they must be repaid. Examine yourself the habits of eating, sleeping, exercising, dressing, etc., and try to get rid of the habits which you consider harmful, but in such a way that if you feel unwell from the changes, you should go back to the old habits, for it is not easy to distinguish between habits that are generally considered good for hygiene and habits that are good for yourself and suitable for your own body.
9. On delay
Opportunity to catch the hair on the forehead and you don't, then it will catch the bald head for you, or at least it will give you the handle of the bottle first, and if you don't, it will give you the round body of the bottle, and it will be very difficult to catch. Luck is like the market, if you can wait a little longer, prices will fall. Sometimes, however, it is like Silberates selling books, in which she sells the whole thing at first, then reduces it part by part, while still insisting on the same price. There is no greater wisdom than making good use of the timing at the beginning of the beginning. Danger is no longer irrelevant if it once seemed insignificant, and there is more danger of deception than danger.
10. On human nature
Nature is often hidden, sometimes it can be suppressed, and rarely it can be completely extinguished. Stress is in nature, making it more intense when it subsides, but habit can really change temperament and restrain nature. Whoever wants to conquer his own instinct should not set himself too much or too little work, for too much work will discourage him because he often fails, and too little work, though it will make him always successful, will make him a man of little progress. In the case of learning, a man should have a fixed amount of time for subjects which are not in harmony with his natural instinct and which he is reluctant to study, but in all subjects that are in harmony with his nature, there is no need for any prescribed time, for his mind will take matters into its own hands and fly to that aspect, as long as there is enough time left for the study of other things or disciplines.
(The above content is excerpted from "Bacon's Essays")
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