Mencius (Mengzi)

A collection of conversations, debates and sayings of Mencius (Mengzi), the most important Confucian thinker after Confucius, compiled by his followers in seven books. It opens with Mencius telling King Hui of Liang that a ruler should speak of benevolence and rightness, not profit. Much of the book is advice to rulers: govern humanely, lighten taxes and punishments, and the people will come to you. A ruler who abuses them loses his claim to rule, and Mencius says that killing the tyrant Zhou was punishing a mere 'fellow', not murdering a king. The book's central claim is that human nature is good. Everyone has four 'sprouts', namely compassion, shame, deference and a sense of right and wrong, which can grow into benevolence, rightness, ritual propriety and wisdom. Famous passages include the child about to fall into a well, the farmer who pulls at his sprouts to make them grow, the 'flood-like qi', the stripped Ox Mountain, and the debates with Gaozi about human nature.

It offers one of the clearest early arguments that morality grows from natural feeling rather than being imposed from outside, and its claim that rulers answer for the welfare of the people is still a live challenge.