> Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but I think I can see in his deadened, ambitious eyes the character that would later lead Leopold to inflict immense suffering on the people of the Congo for personal gain. The spark of humanity that you can see in the eyes of so many of Nadar’s subjects just isn’t there.
Or maybe the author's perception is colored by what we know of this man.
This notion is everywhere and it's just dead wrong. It's still possible to think in the presence of biases. The fact that your opinion may be subject to some unconscious biased in some direction does not invalidate your opinion. Maybe it weights it in a way you're not aware of---but maybe not. Maybe they are fully aware of the fact that they could have some bias here but have enough data to think that their observation is still true in some significant way.
Or maybe the author's perception is colored by what we know of this man.