[英国]弗朗西斯·培根/Francis Bacon
弗朗西斯·培根（1561-1626），英国著名的唯物主义哲学家和科学家。在文艺复兴时期的巨人中，他被尊称为哲学史和科学史上划时代的人物。马克思称他是“英国唯物主义和整个现代实验科学的真正始祖”。他是第一个提出“知识就是力量”的人。培根生于伦敦一个官宦世家，12岁时，被送入剑桥大学三一学院深造。在校学习期间，他对传统的观念和信仰产生了怀疑，开始独自思考社会和人生的真谛。培根是近代哲学史上首先提出经验论原则的哲学家，对近代科学的建立起了积极的推动作用，对人类哲学史、科学史都作出了重大的历史贡献。为此，罗素尊称培根为“给科学研究程序进行逻辑组织化的先驱”。
1626年，在伦敦北郊，培根由于支气管炎复发，病情恶化，于4月9日清晨病逝。
In this famous essay, first published in 1625，Francis Bacon declares that truth in the philosophical and theological sense, as well as honesty in the civil business sense, are the“sovereign good of human nature.”
Truth, which only doth judge itself, teacheth that the inquiry of truth, which is the love-making or wooing of it, the knowledge of truth, which is the presence of it, and the belief of truth, which is the enjoying of it, is the sovereign good of human nature. The first creature of God, in the works of the days, was the light of the sense;the last was the light of reason;and his sabbath work ever since is the illumination of his Spirit. First he breathed light upon the face of the matter or chaos;then he breathed light into the face of man;and still he breatheth and inspireth light into the face of his chosen. The poet that beautified the sect that was otherwise inferior to the rest saith yet excellently well:It is a pleasure to stand upon the shore and to see ships tossed upon the sea;a pleasure to stand in the window of a castle and to see a battle and the adventures thereof below;but no pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage ground of truth（a hill not to be commanded, and where the air is always clear and serene），and to see the errors and wanderings and mists and tempests in the vale below;so always that this prospect be with pity, and not with swelling or pride. Certainly, it is heaven upon earth to have a man's mind move in charity, rest in providence, and turn upon the poles of truth.