Quotation
Last reviewed:
“Human nature is good just as water seeks low ground. There is no person who is not good; there is no water that does not flow downward.”
Mencius · Confucianism · Ancient · c. 4th–3rd century BCE
What does it mean?
The mainstream reading is that goodness is a tendency of human nature, as water tends downward, not a guarantee that everyone behaves well. A competing reading, which his own next lines invite and which Xunzi will press, says circumstances strike the water uphill, so the tendency explains less of actual conduct than the slogan suggests. The image is his reply to Gaozi in Mencius 6A.2. The popular version drops the uphill half.
Did Mencius really say this?
The library’s label is Paraphrase or translation. Close translation of his reply to Gaozi. He immediately adds that you can strike water and make it jump over your head — so circumstances can force nature against its tendency. The popular slogan drops that half.
Where it comes from
Mencius 6A.2
Approximate date: c. 4th–3rd century BCE.
How to use it
When someone acts badly in a queue or on a ward, ask what is damming or striking the water, including the rota, the fear, the crowd, before you conclude there was no tendency toward good at all. The question does not cancel responsibility. It stops the inference from one bad hour to a blank nature.
A mindset reading
Optimism about nature is not naivety about behaviour. Mencius holds both the tendency and the failures. The habit is to keep the second half of the image, the water forced upward, whenever you quote the first.
Understand the philosophy
He is answering Gaozi, who compared nature to a willow that can be made into cups, raw material with no direction of its own. Water that seeks low ground is Mencius's counter-image: a tendency, not a shape imposed from nothing, and 'good' means the sprouts of humaneness and rightness. Xunzi will deny the sprouts. That quarrel organises a great deal of later East Asian ethics.
- ethics
- virtue
- self
FAQ
What does it mean?
The mainstream reading is that goodness is a tendency of human nature, as water tends downward, not a guarantee that everyone behaves well. A competing reading, which his own next lines invite and which Xunzi will press, says circumstances strike the water uphill, so the tendency explains less of actual conduct than the slogan suggests. The image is his reply to Gaozi in Mencius 6A.2. The popular version drops the uphill half.
Did Mencius really say this?
Paraphrase or translation. Close translation of his reply to Gaozi. He immediately adds that you can strike water and make it jump over your head — so circumstances can force nature against its tendency. The popular slogan drops that half.
Which work is it in?
Mencius 6A.2 Approximate date: c. 4th–3rd century BCE.