Bacon modeled scientific inquiry directly on the witch inquisition James I practiced.

Evidence

For you have but to follow and as it were hound nature in her wanderings, and you will be able when you like to lead and drive her afterward to the same place again. Neither am I of opinion in this history of marvels that superstitious narratives of sorceries, witchcrafts, charms, dreams, divinations, and the like, where there is an assurance and clear evidence of the fact, should be altogether excluded howsoever the use and practice of such arts is to be condemned, yet from the speculation and consideration of them … a useful light may be gained, not only for a true judgment of the offenses of persons charged with such practices, but likewise for the further disclosing of the secrets of nature. Neither ought a man to make scruple of entering and penetrating into these holes and corners, when the inquisition of truth is his whole object—as your majesty has shown in your own example. (Italics added.) — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature, 668

Categorization

• XREF: Bacon explicitly cites James I’s witchcraft prosecution as the model for his method — evidence for the causal chain from legal persecution to scientific epistemology.