'Inductive Study'

"In 1905, I began a careful study of the Shakspere plays and poems with the determination to permit myself to be restricted by no preconceived theory of authorship. If the evidence showed William Shakspere to be the author, well and good. If it showed Francis Bacon to be the author, again well and good. And if it indicated some one other than these as author--still well and good. The inductive study of the works in question has been my only guide. To this method of inquiry I have been accustomed in the study of physical sciences. It involves the proposition that the investigation should be entirely neutral towards so-called authority, that it should be be pursued without any regard for the antiquity of that authority, or the conservative interests supporting it."

Henry Pemberton, Jr. in his preface to
Shakspere and Sir Walter Ralegh: Including Also Several Essays Previously Published in The New Shakspeareana (1914)