His achievement was not the less great because it was indirect.
虽然培根很多贡献是不直接的，但是我们不能说他的成就是不伟大的。
（他的成就不会因其间接性而有所减损。）
多次否定能不那么激进，稍微软化一点。
His philosophical works, though little read now, "moved the intellects which moved the world."
尽管如今很少有人再读他的哲学著作，但它曾经“震撼过那些推动世界发展的智者。”
He made himself the eloquent voice of the optimism and resolution of the Renaissance.
他主张文艺复兴式的乐观，鼓励雄心壮志。
文艺复兴时代，大乱之后必有大进。
人类任何一次灾难，都不是平白无故发生的，一旦人类只要熬过了，带来的将是巨大的进步。
整个西方的现在的价值观的确立，很大程度来自于文艺复兴--思辨，对个体的注重，对于人本的考量。
文艺复兴和宗教和神和神像的对立，确实有这种乐观主义和决绝的决心。宗教看多了，确实会让人消极，变成宿命论。
Never was any man so great a stimulus to other thinkers.
在人类的思想史上，从未有人能如此强烈地激发其他思想家。
King James, it is true, refused to accept his suggestion for the support of science, and said of the Novum Organum that "it was like the peace of God, which passeth all understanding."
尽管詹姆士一世没有接受他提出的扶持科学的建议，并且评论《新论工具论》“是上帝的宁静，超过了我们所有的理解范围之内了。”
But better men, in 1662, founding that Royal Society which was to become the greatest association of scientists in the world, named Bacon as their model and inspiration;
但1662年，那些优秀的人们创建了后来世界上最伟大的科学家联合会--“皇家学会”，而培根被他们奉为楷模，给了他们启迪。
they hoped that this organization of English research would lead the way toward that Europe-wide association which the Advancement of Learning had taught them to desire.
他们也希望于这个英语研究组织能够领导一个这样的方向到达欧洲范围内的群体组织，也就是学习和进步的这本书让他们努力为之奋斗。
And when the great minds of the French Enlightenment undertook that masterpiece of intellectual enterprise, the Encyclopédie, they dedicated it to Francis Bacon.
当法国启蒙运动的伟大思想者们创造出《百科全书》这一人类智慧的巅峰之作时，他们将它献给了弗兰西斯.培根。
"If," said Diderot in the Prospectus, "we have come of it successfully,we shall owe most to the Chancellor Bacon, who threw out the plan of an universal dictionary of sciences and arts, at a time when, so to say, neither arts nor sciences existed.That extraordinary genius, when it was impossible to write a history of what was known, wrote one of what it was necessary to learn."
在这本书的简介中，狄德罗说道：“假如这本书能获得成功，我们最应该感谢的是大法官培根，他在一个既无技术也无科学的时代，萌生出编撰一本涵盖一切科学与艺术的大辞典计划。这位杰出的天才在无法写出一部关于已知事物的史书年代里，写出了一部关于人们必须要学习的东西。”
D'Alembert called Bacon "the greatest, the most universal, and the most eloquent of philosophers."
达朗贝尔盛赞培根为“最杰出、最普世、最雄辩的哲学家。”
The Convention published the works of Bacon at the expense of the state.
法国国会还公费出版了培根的著作。
The whole tenor and career of British thought have followed the philosophy of Bacon.
而英国整个思想的基调主旨与走向一直沿袭培根哲学的传统。
His tendency to conceive the world in Democritean mechanical terms gave to his secretary, Hobbes, the starting-point for a thorough-going materialism;
他试着用德谟克里特机械论的观点理解世界，给了他的秘书霍布斯走向彻底唯物主义提供了出发点；
his inductive method gave to Locke the idea of an empirical psychology, bound by observation and freed from theology and metaphysics;
他的归纳法也为洛克提供了灵感，让后者构思出经验主义心理学的框架，建立在观察之上。
and his emphasis on "commodities" and "fruits" found formulation in Bentham's identification of the useful and the good.
培根对于强调“商品”和“劳动果实”这样的观点，建立一个构架，解释了边沁学说中什么是有用的，什么是善良。
（在边沁把美与效用等同起来的理论中，“商品”和“成果”得到了系统的阐述。）
霍布斯，洛克和边沁是培根后哲学界的三杰。
语言点
resolution: n. 决心
dedicate: vt. 奉献
extraordinary: adj. 杰出的
tenor: n. 要旨
empirical: adj. 经验的
metaphysics: n. 形而上学
