Editing Francis Bacon (section)

===Law===
Although few of his proposals for law reform were adopted during his lifetime, Bacon's legal legacy was considered by the magazine ''[[New Scientist]]'' in 1961 as having influenced the drafting of the [[Napoleonic Code]] as well as the law reforms introduced by 19th-century British Prime Minister [[Sir Robert Peel]].<ref>{{cite web |last=Crowther |first=J. G. |title=Article about Francis Bacon |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ODBtWGjxXH8C&pg=PA146 |work=New Scientist |date=19 January 1961 }}{{Dead link|date=November 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> The historian [[William Hepworth Dixon]] referred to the Napoleonic Code as "the sole embodiment of Bacon's thought", saying that Bacon's legal work "has had more success abroad than it has found at home", and that in France "it has blossomed and come into fruit".<ref>{{cite book |last=Hepworth Dixon |first=William |title=Personal history of Lord Bacon: From unpublished papers |publisher=J. Murray |year=1861 |page=[https://archive.org/details/personalhistory00dixogoog/page/n57 35] |url=https://archive.org/details/personalhistory00dixogoog}}</ref>

[[Harvey Wheeler]] attributed to Bacon, in ''Francis Bacon's Verulamium{{snd}}the Common Law Template of The Modern in English Science and Culture'', the creation of these distinguishing features of the modern [[common law]] system:
* using cases as repositories of evidence about the "unwritten law";
* determining the relevance of precedents by exclusionary principles of evidence and logic;
* treating opposing legal briefs as adversarial hypotheses about the application of the "unwritten law" to a new set of facts.

As late as the 18th century, some juries still declared the law rather than the facts, but already before the end of the 17th century [[Sir Matthew Hale]] explained modern common law adjudication procedure and acknowledged Bacon as the inventor of the process of discovering unwritten laws from the evidences of their applications. The method combined empiricism and inductivism in a new way that was to imprint its signature on many of the distinctive features of modern [[English society]].<ref>Wheeler, Harvey. ''Francis Bacon's 'Verulamium': the Common Law Template of The Modern in English Science and Culture''</ref> [[Paul H. Kocher]] writes that Bacon is considered by some jurists to be the father of modern [[Jurisprudence]].<ref name="Jurisprudence">{{cite journal |last=Kocher |first=Paul |author-link=Paul H. Kocher |year=1957 |title=Francis Bacon and the Science of Jurisprudence |journal=Journal of the History of Ideas |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press |location=Philadelphia|volume=8 |issue=1 |pages=3–26 |doi=10.2307/2707577 |jstor=2707577  |issn = 0022-5037}}</ref>

Bacon is commemorated with a statue in [[Gray's Inn]], South Square in London where he received his legal training, and where he was elected Treasurer of the Inn in 1608.<ref>[https://www.graysinn.org.uk/history/timeline/sir-francis-bacon "Sir Francis Bacon"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160402172004/https://www.graysinn.org.uk/history/timeline/sir-francis-bacon |date=2 April 2016 }}. GraysInn.org. Retrieved 21 August 2015</ref>

More recent scholarship on Bacon's jurisprudence has focused on his advocating torture as a legal recourse for the crown.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Hanson |first=Elizabeth |title=Torture and Truth in Renaissance England |journal=Representations |date=Spring 1991 |volume=34 |pages=53–84 |doi=10.1525/rep.1991.34.1.99p0046u |doi-broken-date=1 November 2024 }}</ref> Bacon himself was not a stranger to the torture chamber; in his various legal capacities in both Elizabeth I's and James I's reigns, Bacon was listed as a commissioner on five torture warrants. In 1613(?), in a letter addressed to King James I on the question of torture's place within English law, Bacon identifies the scope of torture as a means to further the investigation of threats to the state: "In the cases of treasons, torture is used for discovery, and not for evidence."<ref>{{cite book |last=Langbein |first=John H. |title=Torture and the Law of Proof |year=1976 |publisher=The University of Chicago Press |page=90 }}</ref> For Bacon, torture was not a punitive measure, an intended form of state repression, but instead offered a modus operandi for the government agent tasked with uncovering acts of treason.