The historically minded person is therefore cynical about essential change in the human being, having observed that variations in belief, geography, national community, technology, family structure, and material prosperity do very little to mitigate profound behavioral homogenuity. History teaches us which human impulses rule, and which human impulses are subjugated. In that sense, history is the beginning of education. Whereas the historically minded person is cynical about essential change, the a-historical mind is cynical about continuing as the same creature. . . .