ABSTRACT
Francis Bacon was a producer of the Inns of Court players, the investigation into his connection to the Shakespeare canon finds a natural entrance by focusing on plays that might have passed through these schools of law. The greatest impediment to progress is an attitude that has corrupted all ages of human investigation, that is, the dogmatic insistence that all evidence must be rejected that is inconsistent with one’s own views, that Nature must conform to one’s will. Shakspere’s claim to contribution is untestable, the claim for single authorship by an alternative candidate is untestable, and there are many hands of revision in the Shakespeare work. While the denial of all evidence that intrudes on our constructions can maintain a comforting private sanctuary, the avoidance of a critical test that necessitates its defence can never lead to the real truth of the matter.
