Russell as an optimist..................?

    "We have also become, in certain respects, progressively less like animals.  I can think in particular of two respects:  first, that acquired, as opposed to congenital, skills play a continually increasing part in human life, and, secondly, that forethought more and more dominates impulse.  In these respects we have certainly become progressively less like animals."

-Bertrand Russell, as culled from here