Pass the articles on Balzac and D’Annunzio, both of which might have been written by Old Age or even by Middle Age, and let us see how the state of mind calling itself Youth deals with history. Remember that Cambridge, where the Cocoons come from, regards itself as “the nursery of the nation”; and then listen to Mr. L. J. Cheney, no doubt one of our future representatives on the World-League, preparing his programme. “It is stupid,” he says, “to write history or to study history, on the assumption that we Western Europeans are the salt of the earth.” And Mr. H. Y. Oulsham, on the same subject, remarks that “we must keep the sociological aim of history in sight”; ... “the be-all and end-all of history is sociology.” No wonder the _Manchester Guardian_—the guardian, that is to say, of Manchester—found _The Cocoon_ so promising, for the opinions expressed by Mr. Cheney and Mr. Oulsham are embryos of _Manchester Guardian_ “leaders,” they are _so_ cosmopolitan and _so_ humanitarian. Apart, however, from their extreme Age, bordering on decrepitude, I find in them not even an unimportant “truthful interpretation.” It is not true that sociology is the be-all and end-all of history as it ought to be written; and to deny, in the name of history, that Western Europe _is_ the salt of the earth (however it may have lost its savour) is just to deny and repudiate European world-responsibility. Things, again, _are_ so and so, and not otherwise, let Youth interpret them as it will. Europe _is_ the responsible mind of the world, and the be-all and end-all of history is the fulfilment of a world-purpose whose objective is more than merely human sociology. If the “nursery of the nation” has a different interpretation, the nursery of the nation is wrong. _The Cocoon_ is under the impression that there is something valuable in Youth in years; that Youth in years is the only kind of Youth; that Youth in years is Youth indeed. Our first birth, however, is only a sleep and a forgetting, and real Youth comes only after the second-birth. The once-born are creatures of pure circumstance, owing their youth to the accident of time alone; but the twice-born are self-creations defying time; they never grow old, though they are always growing up. _The Cocoon_ fairly describes Youth as “a condition of energy and receptiveness”; but is Youth in years necessarily of that kind? As for receptiveness, we have already seen that the “historians” of the “nursery of the nation” either hark back or hark forward to ideas long since dead. And as for “energy,” barring its animal manifestation in sport, the highest culture demands the highest concentration of energy, and where shall we find it but in the twice-born? Whoever can make a turn upon himself and his habits of thought is young, whatever his years. On the other hand, whoever cannot be “bothered” to think afresh, but contents himself with what he used to think is old and lacking in energy, whatever his years or his blues.