Christian Missions and Social Progress Vol I

In the previous post we noticed that Nobel Peace Prize winner, John Mott, mentioned "the masterly, scientific survey by Dr. Dennis of the social evils of the non-Christian world". Mott was referring to a book titled Christian Missions and Social Progress Vol I (written by Dr Dennis).

In the table of contents beginning at page ten Doctor Dennis lists dozens of sins that he claims were being committed by non-Christians around the world. Sins like Gambling, Immorality, Adultery, Corruption, Bribery, and Fraud for example.

The thing that strikes me about these sins is that far from being exclusive to the non-Christians, they are extremely well represented in the Christian community as well.

It's a huge book (468 pages) and I didn't know where to begin so I decided to search for the word "Australia" (for no other reason than that I live in Australia) and this is what I found on page 151:

Among the aboriginies of Australia, especially the Papuans of Queensland, cannibal feasts are a common occurrance, as Lumholtz declares.

Now that surprised me because Papua and Australia are two different countries and one does not expect to find a mistake like that in a book which John Mott describes as "masterly" and "scientific".

I decided to take a closer look at his credentials and discovered that Dr Dennis was most definitely not a masterly scientist. He was doctor alright, but his doctorate was not in the field of science. He was a Doctor of Divinity. He was nothing more than a glorified bible student! And he was not usually known as 'Dr Dennis' but as 'Reverend Dennis".

But wait, there's more: the Reverend Dennis was quoting from an earlier book written by Carl Lumholtz (Among Cannibals by Carl Lumholtz) so I went back to that original source and found that it, too, was extremely unscientific.

On page 130 of "Among Cannibals" Lumholtz explains that some Australian aborigines have broad noses while almost all of the inhabitants of Papua have very broad noses and therefore, according to Lumholtz: 

I think it probable that the large noses sometimes found in Northern Queensland may be attributed to a mixture with Papuans, whose noses are known to be their pride.
https://archive.org/details/amongcannibalsac1889lumh

Here is the full text as it appears on page 130:

The most characteristic feature of an Australian's face is the low receding forehead and the prominence of the part immediately above the eyes. The latter might indicate keen perception, and in this they are not lacking. Their eyes are expressive, dark brown, frequently with a tinge of deep blue. The white of the eye is of a dirty yellow colour and very much bloodshot, which gives them a savage look. The nose is flat and triangular, and narrow at the top, thus bringing the eyes near together. The partition between the two nostrils is very large and conspicuous. Many of the natives pierce it and put a yellow stick into it as an ornament. My men, who of course had neither pockets nor pipe-cases, frequently put their pipes into these holes in their noses as a convenient place to keep them, and fancied that their noses looked all the better for it. Now and then I met men whose noses were almost Roman, and there were all the transitional forms between these and the flat triangular noses. I have also heard of high aquiline noses among the natives of New South Wales. I think it probable that the large noses sometimes found in Northern Queensland may be attributed to a mixture with Papuans, whose noses are known to be their pride. The irregular size of their bodies is evidence in the same direction.

The Australian aborigines have high cheek-bones and large, open, ugly-looking mouths. But the blacks on Herbert river usually keep their mouths shut, which improves their looks, and they are, upon the whole, a better looking race than the natives in the south. Their lips are a reddish-blue, and they have small receding chins. Their muscular development is usually slight and their legs and arms are particularly slender; still I have seen many exceptions to this rule. The women are always knock-kneed, and this is often the case with the men, although with them it is not nearly so marked, their legs being almost straight.

On page 132 Lumholtz also notes that:

The race must be characterised as ugly-looking, though the expression of the countenance is not, as a rule, disagreeable, especially when their attention is awakened. Occasionally handsome individuals may be found, particularly among the men, who as a rule are better shaped than the women.

And this unscientific nonsense is the source used by Dr Dennis, and which John Mott (Nobel Peace Prize winner) refers to as "masterly and scientific".