第 58 节
作者:乐乐陶陶      更新:2021-02-24 23:08      字数:9322
  enmities and jealousies; toiling in Herculean tasks without
  complaint; and waiting his time; always accessible; affable;
  gentle; with no vulgar pride; if he aped vulgar ostentation; calm;
  beneficent; studious; without envy or bitterness; interesting in
  his home; courted as a friend; admired as a philosopher; generous
  to the poor; kind to the servants who cheated him; with an
  unsubdued love of Nature as well as of books; not negligent of
  religious duties; a believer in God and immortality; and though
  broken in spirit; like a bruised reed; yet soaring beyond all his
  misfortunes to study the highest problems; and bequeathing his
  knowledge for the benefit of future ages!  Can such a man be
  stigmatized as 〃the meanest of mankind〃?  Is it candid and just for
  a great historian to indorse such a verdict; to gloss over Bacon's
  virtues; and make like an advocate at the bar; or an ancient
  sophist; a special plea to magnify his defects; and stain his noble
  name with an infamy as deep as would be inflicted upon an enemy of
  the human race?  And all for what?just to make a rhetorical
  point; and show the writer's brilliancy and genius in making a
  telling contrast between the man and the philosopher。  A man who
  habitually dwelt in the highest regions of thought during his whole
  life; absorbed in lofty contemplations; all from love of truth
  itself and to benefit the world; could not have had a mean or
  sordid soul。  〃As a man thinketh; so is he。〃  We admit that he was
  a man of the world; politic; self…seeking; extravagant; careless
  about his debts and how he raised money to pay them; but we deny
  that he was a bad judge on the whole; or was unpatriotic; or
  immoral in his private life; or mean in his ordinary dealings; or
  more cruel and harsh in his judicial transactions than most of the
  public functionaries of his rough and venal age。  We admit it is
  difficult to controvert the charges which Macaulay arrays against
  him; for so accurate and painstaking an historian is not likely to
  be wrong in his facts; but we believe that they are uncandidly
  stated; and so ingeniously and sophistically put as to give on the
  whole a wrong impression of the man;making him out worse than he
  was; considering his age and circumstances。  Bacon's character;
  like that of most great men; has two sides; and while we are
  compelled painfully to admit that he had many faults; we shrink
  from classing him among bad men; as is implied in Pope's
  characterization of him as 〃the meanest of mankind。〃
  We now take leave of the man; to consider his legacy to the world。
  And here again we are compelled to take issue with Macaulay; not in
  regard to the great fact that Bacon's inquiries tended to a new
  revelation of Nature; and by means of the method called induction;
  by which he sought to establish fixed principles of science that
  could not be controverted; but in reference to the ends for which
  he labored。  〃The aim of Bacon;〃 says Macaulay; 〃was utility;
  fruit; the multiplication of human enjoyments; 。 。 。 the mitigation
  of human sufferings; 。 。 。 the prolongation of life by new
  inventions;〃dotare vitam humanum novis inventis et copiis; 〃the
  conquest of Nature;〃dominion over the beasts of the field and the
  fowls of the air; the application of science to the subjection of
  the outward world; progress in useful arts;in those arts which
  enable us to become strong; comfortable; and rich in houses; shops;
  fabrics; tools; merchandise; new vegetables; fruits; and animals:
  in short; a philosophy which will 〃not raise us above vulgar wants;
  but will supply those wants。〃  〃And as an acre in Middlesex is
  worth more than a principality in Utopia; so the smallest practical
  good is better than any magnificent effort to realize an
  impossibility;〃 and 〃hence the first shoemaker has rendered more
  substantial service to mankind than all the sages of Greece。  All
  they could do was to fill the world with long beards and long
  words; whereas Bacon's philosophy has lengthened life; mitigated
  pain; extinguished disease; built bridges; guided the thunderbolts;
  lightened the night with the splendor of the day; accelerated
  motion; annihilated distance; facilitated intercourse; enabled men
  to descend to the depths of the earth; to traverse the land in cars
  which whirl without horses; and the ocean in ships which sail
  against the wind。〃  In other words; it was his aim to stimulate
  mankind; not to seek unattainable truth; but useful truth; that is;
  the science which produces railroads; canals; cultivated farms;
  ships; rich returns for labor; silver and gold from the mines;all
  that purchase the joys of material life and fit us for dominion
  over the world in which we live。  Hence anything which will curtail
  our sufferings and add to our pleasures or our powers; should be
  sought as the highest good。  Geometry is desirable; not as a noble
  intellectual exercise; but as a handmaid to natural philosophy。
  Astronomy is not to assist the mind to lofty contemplation; but to
  enable mariners to verify degrees of latitude and regulate clocks。
  A college is not designed to train and discipline the mind; but to
  utilize science; and become a school of technology。  Greek and
  Latin exercises are comparatively worthless; and even mathematics;
  unless they can be converted into practical use。  Philosophy; as
  ordinarily understood;that is; metaphysics;is most idle of all;
  since it does not pertain to mundane wants。  Hence the old Grecian
  philosopher labored in vain; and still more profitless were the
  disquisitions of the scholastics of the Middle Ages; since they
  were chiefly used to prop up unintelligible creeds。  Theology is
  not of much account; since it pertains to mysteries we cannot
  solve。  It is not with heaven or hell; or abstract inquiries; or
  divine certitudes; that we have to do; but the things of earth;
  things that advance our material and outward condition。  To be rich
  and comfortable is the end of life;not meditations on abstract
  and eternal truth; such as elevate the soul or prepare it for a
  future and endless life。  The certitudes of faith; of love; of
  friendship; are of small value when compared with the blessings of
  outward prosperity。  Utilitarianism is the true philosophy; for
  this confines us to the world where we are born to labor; and
  enables us to make acquisitions which promote our comfort and ease。
  The chemist and the manufacturer are our greatest benefactors; for
  they make for us oils and gases and paints;things we must have。
  The philosophy of Bacon is an immense improvement on all previous
  systems; since it heralds the jubilee of trades; the millennium of
  merchants; the schools of thrift; the apostles of physical
  progress; the pioneers of enterprise;the Franklins and
  Stephensons and Tyndalls and Morses of our glorious era。  Its
  watchword is progress。  All hail; then; to the electric telegraph
  and telephones and Thames tunnels and Crystal Palaces and Niagara
  bridges and railways over the Rocky Mountains!  The day of our
  deliverance is come; the nations are saved; the Brunels and the
  Fieldses are our victors and leaders!  Crown them with Olympic
  leaves; as the heroes of our great games of life。  And thou; O
  England! exalted art thou among the nations;not for thy Oxfords
  and Westminsters; not for thy divines and saints and martyrs and
  poets; not for thy Hookers and Leightons and Cranmers and Miltons
  and Burkes and Lockes; not for thy Reformation; not for thy
  struggles for liberty;but for thy Manchesters and Birminghams;
  thy Portsmouth shipyards; thy London docks; thy Liverpool
  warehouses; thy mines of coal and iron; thy countless mechanisms by
  which thou bringest the wealth of nations into thy banks; and art
  enabled to buy the toil of foreigners and to raise thy standards on
  the farthest battlements of India and China。  These conquests and
  acquisitions are real; are practical; machinery over life; the
  triumph of physical forces; dominion over waves and winds;these
  are the great victories which consummate the happiness of man; and
  these are they which flow from the philosophy which Bacon taught。
  Now Macaulay does not directly say all these things; but these are
  the spirit and gist of the interpretation which he puts upon
  Bacon's writings。  The philosophy of Bacon leads directly to these
  blessings; and these constitute its great peculiarity。  And it
  cannot be denied that the new era which Bacon heralded was fruitful
  in these very things;that his philosophy encouraged this new
  development of material forces; but it may be questioned whether he
  had not something else in view than mere utility and physical
  progress; and whether his method could not equally be applied to
  metaphysical subjects; whether it did not pertain to the whole
  domain of truth; and take in the whole realm of human inquiry。  I
  believe that Bacon was interested; not merely in the world of
  matter; but in the world of mind; that he sought to establi