“There is not in Europe any such thing as a pure race. Russians have an admixture of Tartar blood, Germans are largely Slavonic, France is a mixture of Celts, Germans, and people of Mediterranean race, Italy the same with the addition of the descendants of slaves from every corner of the Empire imported by the Romans. The English are perhaps the most mixed of all. There is no evidence that there is any advantage in belonging to a pure race. The purest races now in existence are the Pygmies, the Hottentots, and the Australian aborigines; the Tasmanians, thanks to the British, who were probably even purer are now extinct. There is a special absurdity in applying racial theories to the various populations of Europe.” — Bertrand Russell, Unpopular Essays, Ch. VII: An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish