Excerpt：《培根隨筆：理性思考的58則建言》

Knowledge is Power.
——Francis Bacon

網路上曾經流傳著這麼一句「知識就是力量，法國就是培根」(Knowledge is Power, France is Bacon)，而法國‧培根 (France‧Bacon)，很明顯的就只是一則取材於培根姓名的笑話。

但「知識就是力量」這句名言真的是培根第一個提出來的嗎？有興趣的朋友可以查閱底下連結的維基百科自行解惑：
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientia_potentia_est

重新回到 Francis Bacon，我們可以清楚知道他是一位非常注重理性，強調科學方法的哲學家和政治家，他的歸納法 (inductive method) 應該也是學生時代的必考題吧！

這次我完成閱讀的是他的隨筆集，這一本號稱與蒙田和愛默生 (Ralph Waldo Emerson) 的隨筆作品並列為世界三大隨筆。

這個「世界三大隨筆」的評價是否可信？或許等我讀完愛默生的作品，再來一較高下吧！


https://www.books.com.tw/products/0010323451
培根隨筆：理性思考的58則建言
Francis Bacon Essays
作者：弗蘭西斯‧培根
原文作者：Francis Bacon
譯者：曹明倫
出版社：木馬文化
出版日期：2003/12/05
語言：繁體中文

培根在文學方面的代表作就是他的《隨筆集》（Essays）。這本書一五九七年初版時只收有十篇文章，一六一二年版增至三十八篇，一六二五年版（即末版）增至五十八篇。在培根逝世三十一年後的一六五七年，有一個Rawley版將培根的未完稿《論謠言》（Of Fame）作為第五十九篇收入其《隨筆集》，但由於該篇只有「承」尚無「轉合」，故後來的通行本仍多以五十八篇為標準。
《隨筆集》的內容涉及到政治、經濟、宗教、愛情、婚姻、友誼、藝術、教育和倫理等等，幾乎觸及了人類生活的各方面。作為一名學識淵博且通曉人情世故的哲學家和思想家，培根對他談及的問題均有發人深省的獨到之見。《隨筆集》語言簡潔，文筆優美，說理透徹，警句迭出，幾百年來深受各國讀者歡迎，據說有不少人的性格曾受到這本書的薰陶。於今天的青年讀者，讀《隨筆集》就像聽一位睿智的老人侃侃而談，因為《隨筆集》裡包含著這位先哲的思想精髓。

作者簡介
弗蘭西斯．培根（Francis Bacon）是英國傑出的哲學家和文學家。他於一五六一年一月出生在倫敦一個官僚家庭，十二歲時入劍橋大學三一學院（Trinity College, Cambridge），十五歲時作為英國駐法大使的隨員到巴黎供職，一五七九年因父親病故而辭職回國，同年入格雷律師學院（Gray’s Inn）攻讀法學，一五八二年獲得律師資格，從此步入浩瀚的學海和坎坷的仕途。培根在伊莉莎白一世時代仕途屢屢受挫，直到詹姆斯一世繼位（一六○三）後他才開始走運，一六○三年受封為爵士，一六○四年被任命為皇家法律顧問。一六○七年出任首席檢察官助理，一六一三年升為首席檢察官，一六一七年入內閣成為掌璽大臣，一六一八年當上大法官並被封為男爵，一六二○年又被封為子爵。一六二一年，身為大法官的培根被控受賄，他認罪下野，從此脫離官場，家居著述，一六二六年在一次冷凍防腐的科學實驗中受寒罹病，於同年四月去世。


【Excerpt】
〈談厄運〉

幸運的好處固然該令人嚮往，但厄運的好處則會使人驚歎——這是塞內加以斯多亞派風格發表的一則高論。
毋庸置疑的，如果「奇蹟」指的是超乎尋常之事，那它們多半是在厄運中產生的；塞內加還有句更高明的至理名言——此言出自一名異教徒之口，實在不可不謂高明——「同時具有人之脆弱和神之超凡，才算是真正的偉大。」這話要是寫成詩或許更為高妙，因為詩中可允許更多的神之超凡，而且詩人們確實也窮究一生地進行這類描寫，孜孜矻矻；這種超凡，實則是古詩人在那部神妙的傳奇故事中所創造出來的意境。
古人的想像力似乎也有十分深邃的部分，甚至與當今的基督徒頗為類似；當海格力士去解救普羅米修斯 (他在故事中象徵了人性) 時，他曾憑藉一個陶甕渡過大海，而這不啻是對基督徒堅忍不拔的精神所做的生動描繪，因為基督徒就是駕駛脆弱的血肉之舟、橫渡塵世之汪洋。一般說來。由幸運培養出來的德行乃「節制」，由厄運而生的德行乃「堅韌」，依道德標準而論，後者是更為高尚的美德。幸運乃《舊約》所言之神恩，厄運則是《新約》所言之福分，後者帶來上帝更為浩蕩的恩澤，也傳遞了上帝更為明白的啟示。不過，即使在你聆聽《舊約》中大衛王那柄豎琴之際，也會聽到與歡歌一樣多的哀樂；而那支聖靈之筆對約伯之苦難，也比對所羅門之幸福有更多的描述。
幸運中並非沒有諸多的憂慮與災禍，而厄運中也不乏種種慰藉和希望。我們可從刺繡織錦中看出，將明麗的圖案繡在陰鬱的背景上，比在明麗的背景上繡陰鬱的圖案更為悅目：不妨就從這眼光之愉悅，去推想心靈之愉悅吧！德行無疑像名貴的香料，經繙焚或碾磨後才會更加香濃；所以幸運使得惡劣更形昭然，而厄運則使善良愈顯明朗。

V.—OF ADVERSITY.

It was a high speech of Seneca (after the manner of the Stoics), that “the good things which belong to prosperity are to be wished, but the good things that belong to adversity are to be admired.” (“Bona rerum secundarum optabilia, adversarum mirabilia.”) Certainly, if miracles be the command over nature, they appear most in adversity. It is yet a higher speech of his than the other (much too high for a heathen), “It is true greatness to have in one the frailty of a man, and the security of a God.” (“Vere magnum habere fragilitatem hominis securitatem Dei.”) This would have done better in poesy, where transcendencies are more allowed, and the poets, indeed, have been busy with it; for it is, in effect, the thing which is figured in that strange fiction of the ancient poets, which seemeth not to be without mystery; nay, and to have some approach to the state of a Christian, “that Hercules, when he went to unbind Prometheus (by whom human nature is represented), sailed the length of the great ocean in an earthen pot or pitcher,” lively describing Christian resolution, that saileth in the frail bark of the flesh through the waves of the world. But to speak in a mean, the virtue of prosperity is temperance, the virtue of adversity is fortitude, which in morals is the more heroical virtue. Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament, adversity is the blessing of the New, which carrieth the greater benediction, and the clearer revelation of God’s favor. Yet even in the Old Testament, if you listen to David’s harp, you shall hear as many hearse-like airs as carols; and the pencil of the Holy Ghost hath labored more in describing the afflictions of Job than the felicities of Solomon. Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes; and adversity is not without comforts and hopes. We see, in needleworks and embroideries, it is more pleasing to have a lively work upon a sad and solemn ground, than to have a dark and melancholy work upon a lightsome ground: judge, therefore, of the pleasure of the heart by the pleasure of the eye. Certainly, virtue is like precious odors, most fragrant when they are incensed, or crushed; for prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue.


〈論友誼〉

「喜歡孤獨者非獸即神」，恐怕就連說出這句名言的人，也再難想出其他隻字片語，能如此高明地把真理和謬誤混為一談。
在人類對於社會所抱持天生而隱諱的憎惡中，固然不乏些許獸性，卻不能說其中存有神性；除非人類是因為熱愛、嚮往更崇高的生活，而造就了對社會的憎惡。所謂「更崇高的嚮往」，傳說中曾有異教徒在追尋，如克里特島人埃庇門笛斯、古羅馬國王努馬、西西里島人恩培多克勒和蒂爾那人阿波羅尼烏斯，實際上則是古代隱士們和教會神父們在追索。
普通人幾乎不知孤獨為何物，亦不知孤獨的影響所及；在沒有愛心的地方，熙攘的人群並非同伴，川流的面孔無非是條畫廊，與人攀談也像是鐃鈸作響。此景雷同某句拉丁格言：「一座都市便是一片荒野」。因為在都市裡，朋友四教各處，再難尋覓小鎮上的那種情誼。但筆者可以進－步斷言：沒有真正的朋友才是一種真實而可悲的孤獨；沒有真正的友誼，世界不過是一片荒野。即便是在這種意義上的荒野中，倘若有人天生缺乏交友的傾向，那該種天性也是來自於獸類，而非人類。
友誼的主要功用之一乃宣洩壓力、安撫心靈，因為喜怒哀樂等各種情緒均會不斷地滋長滿溢。我們都知道，體內滯悶是非常危險的，而抑鬱在心也－樣。人可用洋菝葜疏肝、以鐵劑浚脾、拿硫華宣肺、藉海狸香通腦，可是除了擎友，世上再無任何靈丹妙藥可以舒心；只有對著摯友，人類才可能一吐其憂傷、歡樂、恐懼、希望、猜疑、忠告，以及積壓在心頭的任何感情，像是教門外的世俗懺悔。
……

正如友誼的第一種功用有益於感情的健康，它的第二種功用則有助於智力；友誼既然能把狂暴的情緒變得溫和，亦可把陰鬱的思緒變得清朗。這絕非只是因為得到朋友的忠告；其實在得到忠告前，任何一個思緒紊亂的人，只要願意與旁人溝通，思路就會更清晰、心境更開朗，從而也更容易表達自己的想法、整理思緒，並意識到思想會如何轉變成語言，最後得到明智的答案。這真可請一小時的交談，勝過一整天的沉思。特米斯托克利對波斯王說的話極好：「語言猶如展開的掛毯，意像會顯現在其圖案中；思想則如捲起的掛毯，意像被裹在裡頭。」
論及友誼開啟智力的這種功用，其實並不僅限於那些可給予忠告的朋友 (這種朋友的確最好)。即便沒有這樣的朋友，人亦可聽自己說話，可以展開自己的思想，像磨刀石一般加以磨礪，而兩者又不會損傷對方。總而言之，人寧可對一尊塑像或一幅繪畫吐露心跡，也不要讓思緒在心中窒息。
為了充分說明友誼的第二種作用，且讓筆者進一步說明那顯而易見、卻容易被忽略的一點，即朋友的忠告。赫拉克利特有句晦澀的名言：Dry light is ever the best。比起獨自判斷得來的見解，參考朋友忠告後形成的看法通常更為公允、完善，因為人的理解力和判斷力總是受到個人偏好和習慣所影響。朋友的建議和自己的主張往往有其差異，一如朋友的忠告和諂媚者的奉承不同；最喜歡奉承自己的人莫過於自己，而醫治自以為是的最佳良藥，就是朋友的忠告。
……

除了上述兩種可觀的功用 (即平撫情緒和增進智力) 外，友誼還有一種功用，它猶如石榴，果內多籽；意思是說，它適用於各種日常行為和各種場合。針對這一點，若要生動說明友誼的各種好處，就是檢視生活中有多少事是無法獨立完成的，然後就會發覺「朋友乃另一個自己」這句古話還太過狹義，因為一個朋友其實遠多過一個自己。生死有命，多少人在臨終前尚惦念著某件心事，諸如照顧子女、完成工作等等，然而只要有一位摯友，這人便可瞑目安息，因為他知道身後事自有人料理；而就其所牽掛之事而言，可以說這個人有了兩次生命。
……

XXVII.—OF FRIENDSHIP.

It had been hard for him that spake it, to have put more truth and untruth together in few words than in that speech: “Whosoever is delighted in solitude, is either a wild beast or a god:” for it is most true, that a natural and secret hatred and aversion towards society in any man hath somewhat of the savage beast; but it is most untrue, that it should have any character at all of the divine nature, except it proceed, not out of a pleasure in solitude, but out of a love and desire to sequester a man’s self for a higher conversation; such as is found to have been falsely and feignedly in some of the heathen; as Epimenides, the Candian; Numa, the Roman; Empedocles, the Sicilian; and Apollonius, of Tyana; and truly and really in divers of the ancient hermits and holy fathers of the church. But little do men perceive what solitude is, and how far it extendeth; for a crowd is not company, and faces are but a gallery of pictures, and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love. The Latin adage meeteth with it a little: “Magna civitas, magna solitudo:” because in a great town friends are scattered, so that there is not that fellowship, for the most part, which is in less neighborhoods: but we may go further, and affirm most truly, that it is a mere and miserable solitude to want true friends, without which the world is but a wilderness; and even in this sense also of solitude, whosoever in the frame of his nature and affections is unfit for friendship, he taketh it of the beasts, and not from humanity.
A principal fruit of friendship is the ease and discharge of the fulness and swellings of the heart, 170which passions of all kinds do cause and induce. We know diseases of stoppings and suffocations are the most dangerous in the body, and it is not much otherwise in the mind. You may take sarza to open the liver, steel to open the spleen, flower of sulphur for the lungs, castoreum for the brain, but no receipt openeth the heart but a true friend, to whom you may impart griefs, joys, fears, hopes, suspicions, counsels, and whatsoever lieth upon the heart to oppress it, in a kind of civil shrift or confession.
…

The second fruit of friendship is healthful and sovereign for the understanding, as the first is for the affections; for friendship maketh indeed a fair day in the affections from storm and tempests, but it maketh daylight in the understanding, out of darkness and confusion of thoughts. Neither is this to be understood only of faithful counsel, which a man receiveth from his friend; but before you come to that, certain it is, that whosoever hath his mind fraught with many thoughts, his wits and175 understanding do clarify and break up in the communicating and discoursing with another; he tosseth his thoughts more easily; he marshalleth them more orderly; he seeth how they look when they are turned into words; finally, he waxeth wiser than himself; and that more by an hour’s discourse than by a day’s meditation. It was well said by Themistocles to the king of Persia: “That speech was like cloth of Arras, opened and put abroad, whereby the imagery doth appear in figure; whereas in thoughts they lie but as in packs.” Neither is this second fruit of friendship, in opening the understanding, restrained only to such friends as are able to give a man counsel (they indeed are best), but even without that a man learneth of himself, and bringeth his own thoughts to light, and whetteth his wits as against a stone, which itself cuts not. In a word, a man were better relate himself to a statue or picture, than to suffer his thoughts to pass in smother.
Add now, to make this second fruit of friendship complete, that other point which lieth more open, and falleth within vulgar observation; which is faithful counsel from a friend. Heraclitus saith well, in one of his enigmas, “Dry light is ever the best;” and certain it is, that the light that a man 176receiveth by counsel from another, is drier and purer than that which cometh from his own understanding and judgment, which is ever infused and drenched in his affections and customs. So, as there is as much difference between the counsel that a friend giveth, and that a man giveth himself, as there is between the counsel of a friend and of a flatterer; for there is no such flatterer as is a man’s self, and there is no such remedy against flattery of a man’s self, as the liberty of a friend.
…

After these two noble fruits of friendship (peace in the affections, and support of the judgment), followeth the last fruit, which is like the pomegranate, full of many kernels; I mean aid, and bearing a part in all actions and occasions. Here the best way to represent to life the manifold use of friendship, is to cast and see how many things there are which a man cannot do himself; and then it will appear that it was a sparing speech of the ancients to say, “that a friend is another himself,” for that a friend is far more than himself. Men have their time, and die many times in desire of some things which they principally take to heart; the bestowing of a child, the finishing of a work, or the like. If a man have a true friend, he may rest almost secure that the care of those things will continue after him; so that a man hath, as it were, two lives in his desires.

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/56463/56463-h/56463-h.htm
The Project Gutenberg EBook of Bacons Essays and Wisdom of the Ancients, by Francis Bacon