Mencius used a child falling into a well to prove people are born good
Picture a toddler tottering toward a well. You feel a jolt of alarm before any thought of reward or reputation. For Mencius, China's Second Sage, that instant proved human nature starts out good. He also told kings that a cruel ruler forfeits the throne, and that the people outrank the monarch.
Mencius, born Meng Ke in the state of Zou around 371 BC, lived during the Warring States period and is said to have studied under Confucius's grandson Zisi. Like Confucius, he reportedly spent about forty years travelling between courts offering advice. He served at the Jixia Academy in Qi from 319 to 312 BC, took three years off to mourn his mother, and eventually retired disappointed that rulers ignored him. His conversations became the Mencius, later a Confucian classic.
His mother became a model of devoted parenting in Chinese tradition. In one story she moved house three times, from beside a cemetery, where her son played at funerals, to a market, where he mimicked traders, and finally next to a school, where he took up study; the episode survives as an idiom about choosing the right surroundings for children. In another, she cut through her own weaving to show a truant boy that an abandoned task is ruined.
The well example underpins his doctrine of four sprouts: compassion, shame, deference and a sense of right and wrong, which grow into humanity, righteousness, propriety and wisdom if cultivated. Bad environments stunt them, which is why external rules alone never reform a society. This placed him between Xunzi, who judged human nature bad, and the Taoists, who thought no cultivation was needed. He also rejected rote learning; believing every word of the Book of Documents, he said, was worse than having no book.
Politically he treated the king as a steward answerable to the people. A tyrant who neglects them is no true ruler, so deposing him is not regicide. He favoured light, progressive land taxes, no duties on imports, and a mostly hands-off stance toward markets. Later thinkers, especially Song dynasty Neo-Confucians, treated his reading of Confucius as the orthodox one. He died around 289 BC.
Source: Mencius
