Judging and Pre-judging

The end of our discussion yesterday got me thinking about prejudice, both as it continues to exist in our own society and as it is defined in Austen's novel.  The word has an interesting etymological history, with roots in both the Old French prejuise, meaning preliminary judgment or a precedent, and the classical Latin praeiudicium, meaning preliminary enquiry or precedent.  Nowadays (and in Austen's time too), the word has very negative connotations: the first definition offered by the OED gives us "preconceived opinion not based on reason or actual experience; bias, partiality; unreasoned dislike, hostility, or antagonism towards, or discrimination against, a race, sex, or other class of people." Indeed, the OED shows this usage of prejudice appearing as early as 1300.  Prejudice has a long and painful association with bias, partiality, and discrimination.

But, to play devil's advocate for a moment, might we be a bit prejudiced about prejudice?   I am by no means endorsing the negative characteristics I outline above.  But what about the other, very literal meanings of the word--the sense of pre-judging or anticipating something, or the efficacious use of precedents in law?  Legal precedent functions as pre-judgment, a situation in which the judgment of one scenario frames the interpretation of a new (and ostensibly similar) one.  But I'm also curious about how we mark the distinction between judgment and pre-judgment.  Who decides what makes a judgment preliminary versus--what would be the opposite here--substantiated?  Do we ever have enough evidence to make an opinion into a fact?  Doesn't the concept of pre-judging contains the sense that some material--though perhaps very little--is available to be judged?  And wouldn't this make prejudgment more of a "mini-judgment" than an act that exists prior to judgment?

To put these questions into the context of Austen, what do we make of moments when the novel seems to endorse the very characteristic it elsewhere condemns?  Mr. Collins's letter, for instance, affords Mr. Bennet material he can use to form a pre-judgment about his relative, and his assessment, based solely on his analysis of the letter's form and content, is spot on.  Elizabeth's doubts--"Can he be a sensible man, sir?"--are confirmed confidently by her father: "no, my dear, I think not.  I have great hopes of finding him quite the reverse.  There is a mixture of servility and self-importance in his letter, which promises well.  I am impatient to see him" (Vol. 1 Ch. 13).  The family goes into their meeting with Mr. Collins with certain expectations in place, and the confirmation of these expectations confirms in turn Mr. Bennet's role as careful reader (he loves his library) and an astute judge of character.  I find this moment especially intriguing, as it asks us to contrast indirect and direct evidence of character--what we read of a person versus what we see of him or her.  As our discussion of Mary intimated yesterday, a knowledge of the world based solely on books may itself be pedantic and even "prejudicial," but Mr. Collins's letter also suggests that writing can at other times be a trustworthy representation of character, even in lieu of an actual meeting.  And Austen, as a novelist devoted to crafting realistic characters, would seem to be hyper-aware of this fact.