The Mencius (Mengzi)

The Mencius (Mengzi) records the teachings of the most influential Confucian thinker after Confucius, gathered as dialogues and counsel offered to rival rulers during the Warring States period. Its central and boldest claim is that human nature is inherently good, so that the source of moral transformation lies already within the self.

The argument turns on the "four sprouts": innate beginnings of compassion, shame, deference, and the sense of right and wrong, which grow through cultivation into benevolence, righteousness, propriety, and wisdom. These seeds are genuine but fragile, requiring tending, and the self is further strengthened by nourishing a "flood-like" moral vitality built through accumulated rightness.

One of the Four Books that later defined the Confucian canon, the work locates the engine of self-formation in attending to, protecting, and growing one's latent nature, making inner cultivation the central task of a life.