Mencius
Mencius (372—289B.C.) is regarded as the second sage in the Confucian school. Only two Chinese philosophers have the honour of being known to the Western world by a Latinized name. The first is Confucius and the second Mencius, whose name is Mong Zi（孟子）. Mencius inherited and developed Confucianism and carried it to a new height. His philosophy, together with Confucius’, is known as “the philosophies of Kong Zi and Meng Zi”（孔孟之道）in the history of Chinese culture.
The book, Mencius, bearing the master’s name, has recorded the thoughts, sayings and deeds of this second most important Confucianist. Compared to Analects, which is composed of brief, laconic and provocative sentences, lacking context and difficult to interpret, the articles in Mencius are of greater length, logical, argumentative and persuasive, covering a variety of subjects, greatly influencing the writing of essays in the dynasties that followed. Many ideas in Analects are not explained clearly, leaving a great deal of room for different interpretations. The idea in Mencius are more articulate.
His Philosophy
Mencius inherited Confucius’ theory of ren（仁），but he added to it a second concept—yi（義），meaning “righteousness”, “propriety” or “dutifulness”. He was even more insistent than Confucius on the moral qualities of humanity and the sense of duty that makes a true ruler. He advocated that in the Constitution of a state, “the people rank the highest, the land and grain comes next, and the rulercounts the least”（民為貴，社稷次之，君為輕）. It is very commendable of him to put forth such advanced thought in a time when the emperor was in the supreme position and allpower was in his hands. According to Mencius, a governor exists for the sake of the governed, to give people peace and wealth and lead them by education and examples of virtue. If a ruler neglects his responsibility, or even misuses his power and oppresses the people, the people have the right to discontinue their loyalty to him or even rise against him.
It is this promotion of the common people and their right to revolution that made some rulers regard Mencius as a dangerous book. Like Confucius, Mencius also failed to find a ruler who would listen to him and put his theories into practice. So he spent most of his time teaching disciples.
Mencius was a tender-minded philosopher. He believed that all men are born virtuous. Every person can be a sage（人皆可以為堯舜）. They have the inclination towards goodness, just as natural as the inclination of water to flow downward. All the social corruptions and perversions are due to the distortion of human nature and the falling away of man’s character from its original goodness. It is the neglect and abuse of innate goodness that leads men into evil doings. Once the individual has recovered his original goodness and the state returned to the purity and order of ancient times, all the evils in the individual and in society will vanish. This is the core of Mencius’ doctrine, the orthodoxy of the Confucian school.
A famous dispute about human nature arose between Gao Zi（告子）and Mencius when Gao Zi said, “Appetites for food and sex are human nature.”（食色，性也）. Mencius did not contradict with this statement, he even admitted that desires and appetites constitute the greatest part of human nature. Therefore “Slight is the difference between man and the beast. The common man loses this difference, while the gentleman retains it.” （人之所以異於禽獸者幾希，庶民去之，君子存之）It is this slight difference that sets man apart from animals.
There are lots of legends about Mencius which are popular among the Chinese people. Let’s quote some of them for you to enjoy.
