The ‘unbiased mind’

AN Anglo-Indian journal made the somewhat humorous observation that not having read the works of either Thomas Carlyle or John Ruskin, it could confidently hazard its unbiased opinion that Ruskin was the greater writer of the two. The point of the humour, we need scarcely say, was that familiarity with the works of an author tends to produce a bias in one’s mind in their favour, and that consequently the only unbiased opinion in regard to them is the opinion of the man who knows nothing about them. One is reminded of this use of the word “unbiased” by the only favourable verdicts that have so far been expressed in any quarter, whether in England or India, regarding the new Viceregal appointment. The only good point which the authors of these verdicts have been able to discover in the new Viceroy, apart, of course, from his pedigree, his general education and culture and such parts as he took in the Wood-Winterton negotiations, is that he knows nothing about India and, therefore, presumably has an unbiased mind. Nothing else can be meant by the opinion just expressed by Lord Meston in the Sunday Times that “it may be a definite advantage that the Rt Hon EFL Wood brings a fresh and unbiased mind to bear on such grave issues” as he will have to deal with when he goes out to India. Now, it is perfectly true that unlike the literary or art critic, to whom knowledge of the subject matter of his criticism is the first essential thing, it may be an advantage, under the given circumstances, for a statesman, who is to be called upon to deal with grave and complicated problems around which bitter controversies have centred in the past and do centre even now, not to have had any previous first-hand acquaintance with those problems.