本文通过细读培根的《新大西岛》,意图探寻培根对宗教与科学、宗教与哲学的真实看法,并由此揭示出这篇短小作品背后的现代性问题。培根将自己政治哲学思考置于一个虚构的岛国,以“保密法”为纽带呈现出宗教、科学、哲学三者的紧张关系。在培根的作品中,哲学家从基督教手中夺过立法权,成为新立法者。而科学家则是新立法的执行者,他们将科技与宗教相结合,在表面上消除了二者之间的冲突。在培根对人类未来社会的美好畅想中,现代社会的普遍问题开始出现:道德和法律丧失了神性地位后,也随之失去其价值维度的意义,逐渐转化为一种习惯行为的范式。人类纵然能够从自然界获取到足够满足身体欲望的物质,却对人类世界如何更好地发展失去了方向。培根在追求永久和平的同时,也不可避免地带来了普遍意义上的空虚。作为启蒙运动的预见者,现代性问题的发端,如何理解培根,在当下仍然是一个严肃的问题。 By reading Bacon’s “New Daxi Island,” this article explores Bacon’s true view of religion and science, religion and philosophy and reveals the issues of modernity behind the short work. Bacon put his own political philosophy reflections on a fictional island nation and “tensity law” as a link to show the tension between religion, science and philosophy. In Bacon’s work, philosophers have taken legislative power from Christianity to become new lawmakers. Scientists, on the other hand, are the executors of the new legislation, which combines technology with religion, ostensibly eliminating the conflict between the two. In his brilliant vision of the future of humankind, the common problems in modern society began to emerge: after morality and law lost their divine status, they also lost the meaning of their value dimension and gradually transformed themselves into a paradigm of customary behavior. Even though mankind can obtain enough material from the nature to satisfy his body’s desire, it has lost its direction on how the human world can develop better. While pursuing a permanent peace, Bacon will inevitably bring about a general sense of emptiness. As a forerunner of the Enlightenment, the beginning of the problem of modernity and how to understand Bacon still remain a serious issue for the time being.