As FAR AS I KNOW, Bacon did not write Shakespeare's plays. But he would have been very good at teaching Shakespeare's plays had he ever applied his inductive method in classroom. The primary goal of any Shakespeare teacher should be to enable students to draw hypotheses or conclusions from objective data of texts. We make achieving this goal very difficult, however, if we present Shakespeare to class through deduction: beginning with a hypothesis or critical premise and proceeding to demonstrate how reading is borne out, validated, by play. The deductive teaching method presents to class a neat little model of a critical essay, from which students can learn how to find further evidence in plays to support ordained premises, but deductive teaching does not show students how to begin with play-which is all that beginning students have with which to begin-and engage in a critical process that will lead them toward their own conclusions and working hypotheses. One particular aspect of Bacon's inductive method can, I think, be a useful principle for Shakespeare teachers. Deep within The New Organon, as Bacon enumerates so-called Prerogative Instances, he establishes one intriguing scientific test that he calls Instance of Fingerpost, borrowxving term from fingerposts which are set up where roads part, to indicate several directions (II, 36, p. 191). The Instances of Fingerpost designate points in process of scientific investigation at which roads divide and correct choice of direction must be made by investigator, scientist, or critic; Instances mark a separation of points during which apparent validity of two or more ideas is so balanced as to be uncertain from point after which the question is decided, and former nature is admitted as cause, while latter is dismissed and rejected. This moment for separation of hypotheses usually occurs, according to Bacon, very late in process of investigation and is usually discovered only by earnest and active diligence. As critics, those whose job it is to separate, we can find in Shakespeare's plays these points where roads part and fingerpost must be placed. As teachers, those who help others learn to criticize, we need not place fingerpost: our strategy should be, first, to allow students to begin their investigation in medias res by showing them exactly where in plays opposed hypotheses cross or con-