ABSTRACT
The language of race science defined itself as “scientific” by referring to Darwin, theories of “survival of the fittest” and “natural selection,” and claiming its own version of reality as “objective” truth, not unscientific idealism. In fact, this discourse claimed “scientific” status partly by opposing itself to “sentimentalism,” “altruism,” and “philanthropy.” The interaction of religious and scientific race discourse on immigration demonstrates not only the ideological premises of race science, including a deep, abiding hostility to religious activism on behalf of the “inferior” races, but also the complex history of cross-fertilization between liberal Protestant Social Gospel and eugenic ideologies. As missionary discourse was shaped and developed partly by its interaction with race science, so scientific racism was affected by its complex relationship with the discourse of Protestant social activism, of which missionaries were part.
