Finding Wisdom in East Asian Classics

FEW READERS OF Xunzi will fail to recognize the importance of the issues addressed therein or the salience of Xunzi’s arguments. He has been considered one of the classic Masters for almost two millennia, and even though he was not chosen by the great Neo-Confucian philosopher Zhu Xi for inclusion in Zhu’s highly selective Four Books, which later became canonical, Zhu’s own curriculum included him as one of the Masters, along with Laozi, Zhuangzi, and Han Feizi. As such, Xunzi is a classic deserving of any educated person’s attention.¹

It is also a measure of Xunzi’s classic status that he has so often in the past been paired with his predecessor Mencius, and for an understandable reason: he took issue with Mencius on a central issue of Confucian discourse—the goodness of human nature. That readers have also tended to oversimplify and overread this difference is understandable in view of the ease with which human memory reduces things to simple binaries of opposition. We shall deal with this issue later, but for the present let us just be on guard against the tendency to read this difference into everything Xunzi says.

The fact of the matter is that the view of human nature as evil only appears quite late in the standard text, and there is no reason to assume that it is a fundamental theoretical postulate that necessarily underlies and explains everything else in Xunzi. Indeed, one can read the major, earlier parts of Xunzi without seeing any direct reference to “human nature is evil.” Thus it is better to read this very late chapter in the light of what goes before it rather than vice versa.

When we do this, we can see that the title of this twenty-third chapter, “Xing-e,” (“Human (Inborn) Nature, Evil”) can be understood just as well as “Human Nature as Evil” (or Awful) or “The Evil in Human Nature” rather than as affirming an original corruption or the total depravity of human nature. Even the opening lines of this chapter should warn us against taking this as a radical, all-pervasive stain on human nature:

Human nature is evil: its goodness derives from conscious activity. Now it is human nature to be born with a fondness for profit. Indulging this leads to contention and strife, and the sense of modesty and yielding is lost. One is born with feelings of envy and hate, and, by indulging these, one is led into banditry and theft, so that the sense of being true and trustworthy disappears. One is born with the desires of the ears and eyes and with a fondness for beautiful sights and sounds, and, by indulging these, one is led to licentiousness and chaos, so that the sense of ritual decorum and right reason is lost. Hence, following human nature and indulging human emotions will inevitably lead to contention and strife, causing one to rebel against one’s proper duty, reduce principles to chaos, and revert to violence. Therefore one must be transformed by the example of a teacher and guided by the way of ritual and rightness before one will attain modesty and yielding, accord with refinement and ritual, and return to order. From this perspective it is apparent that human nature is evil and that its goodness is the result of conscious activity.

(SCT, 1:179)

In a passage following this, Xunzi explains that by “human nature” he means nature in the raw. “Now it is human nature that as soon as a person is born he departs from his original substance and from his natural disposition, so that he must inevitably lose and destroy them. Seen in this way, it is apparent that human nature is evil” (SCT, 1:179–180).

Here the word for original substance is pu, but pu is an expression found in the Laozi for undifferentiated or raw, unmarked substance. The graph for Mencius’s xing, on the other hand, includes the radical for heart and mind and connotes an inner, inborn consciousness. Given the fundamental difference in Xunzi’s assumptions with regard to “human nature,” the question naturally arises how “being true and trustworthy” and capable of “ritual decorum and right reason” could become lost if they were not somehow intrinsic to one’s nature to begin with. Xunzi addresses this question in the following:

A questioner asks: If human nature is evil, then where do ritual and rightness come from? I reply: ritual and rightness are always created by the conscious activity of the sages; essentially they are not created by human nature. Thus a potter molds clay and makes a vessel, but the vessel is created by the conscious activity of the potter and is not created by his human nature. In the same way a carpenter carves a piece of wood and makes a utensil, but the utensil is created through the conscious activity of the carpenter and is not created by his human nature. A sage gathers his thoughts and reflections, engages in conscious activity, and thus creates ritual and rightness and produces models and regulations. Hence ritual, rightness, models, and limits are created by the conscious activity of the sage and not by his human nature.

(SCT, 1:181)

The plausibility of this argument depends on whether one accepts the idea that such consciousnesses arise only in a social context. Xunzi’s preference for couching his argument in terms of the binary “raw substance (pu) versus rational consciousness” rather than in terms of inborn moral consciousness suggests that more is at work here than an argument between Xunzi and Mencius. Laozi’s view of raw original substance (pu) versus social or civil reason has entered into the received discourse. In other words, for Xunzi, good cannot be inherent in this undifferentiated substance; for the latter to survive, however, it must necessarily be self-seeking, which leads it into evil.

When a person desires to do good he always does so because his nature is evil. A person who is shallow aspires to depth; one who is ugly aspires to beauty; one who is narrow aspires to breadth; one who is poor aspires to wealth; one who is humble aspires to esteem. Whatever one lacks in oneself he must seek outside. Therefore if a person is rich, he will not aspire to wealth, and if he is esteemed, he will not long for power. What a person possesses in himself he need not seek outside. One can see from this that the reason human beings desire to do good is that their nature is evil.

Now human nature is definitely devoid of ritual and rightness. Therefore, they compel themselves to study and to seek to possess them. The nature knows nothing of ritual and rightness, and therefore one reflects and ponders and seeks to understand them. Thus the nature is inborn, that is all; and human beings neither possess ritual and rightness, nor do they understand them.

(SCT, 1:181–182)

Xunzi’s argument is good as it goes, but it presumes that one’s moral awareness is wholly induced from outside, and it does not explain the susceptibility of human beings to such external influences or why the distinctive human response, civilized life, is not found in other conscious creatures.

There is much more that could be said about Xunzi’s argument with Mencius, but to go further than this would only be to compound the overemphasis on this issue as compared to the much more significant features of Xunzi’s thoughts. Suffice it to say here that Xunzi recognizes in his chapter 23 what is most importantly assumed in the rest of his writings: that humans have both a capacity for and a need for learning. Whether this capacity is part of his inborn nature is a matter of definitions.

If we start with Xunzi’s chapter 1, instead of chapter 23, we will recognize why Xunzi, for all his apparent differences with Mencius, is a Confucian from the start in all key respects: he understands the importance of self-cultivation, the need for sustained and systematic learning in the arts of civilized life, the crucial role of ritual as a vital element in the learning process and in the ordering of society, and, in the end as in the beginning, the prime value of the cultivated human person as the keystone of human flourishing. All this is implicit in the early chapters.

Wood as straight as a plumb line may be bent into a wheel that is as round as if it were drawn with a compass, and, even after the wood has dried, it will not straighten out again because this is the way it has been bent. Thus wood marked by the plumb line will become straight, and metal that is put to a whetstone will become sharp. The noble person who studies widely and examines himself each day will become clear in his knowing and faultless in his conduct.

(SCT, 1:161)

Therefore if you do not climb a high mountain, you will not know the height of Heaven; if you do not look down into a deep valley, you will not know the depth of the earth; and if you do not hear the words handed down from the ancient kings, you will not know the greatness of learning and inquiry.… Once I spent an entire day in thought (introspection), but it was not as good as a moment of study. Once I stood on tiptoe to gaze into the distance, but it was not as good as climbing to a high place to get a broad view. Climbing to a high place and waving will not make your arm any longer, but you can be seen from farther away. Shouting down the wind will give your voice no added urgency, but you can be heard more distinctly. By borrowing a horse and carriage you will not improve your feet, but you can cover a thousand li. By borrowing a boat and paddles you will not improve your ability in water, but you can cross rivers and seas. The noble person is by birth no different from others, but he is good at borrowing from external things.

(SCT, 1:161–162)

To accomplish this, one must have seen models set by the sage-kings and standards established in social rituals, but the process must start with determined effort by the individual, which contrasts with Laozi’s strictures against any assertion of the moral will.

Accumulate earth to make a mountain, and wind and rain will flourish there. Accumulate water to make a deep pool, and dragons will be born from it. Accumulate goodness to create virtue, and spiritual clarity will naturally be acquired; there the mind of the sage will be fully realized. Thus if you do not accumulate little steps, you will not have the means to journey a thousand li, and if you do not pile up small streams, you will have no way to fill a river or a sea. Though a thoroughbred like Qiji cannot cover ten paces in one leap, the sorriest nag can do it in ten yokings. Achievement consists of never giving up.

(SCT, 1:162)

In the west there is a tree called the yegan. Its trunk is no more than four inches tall, and it grows on top of high mountains, looking down into chasms a hundred fathoms deep. This is not because the tree’s trunk is able to grow, but, rather, because of the place where it stands. If raspberry vines grow in the midst of hemp, they will stand up straight without being staked; if white sand is mixed with mud, it too will turn black. If the root of the orchid and the rhizome of the valerian are soaked in the water used to wash rice, the noble person will not go near them, and the commoner will not water them—not because their substance is not beautiful but because of what they have been soaked in. Therefore the noble person will choose with care the place where he will reside, and will be accompanied by scholars when he travels. In this way he avoids depravity and meanness and approaches centrality and correctness.

(SCT, 1:162)

There is little here that would distinguish Xunzi from other Confucians or that would be at odds particularly with Mencius. On the other hand, there is much that stands in opposition to the basic teachings of Laozi later found in the Daodejing. Although Laozi is not the direct target of attack here, texts and concepts attributed to or associated with him were already in circulation well before Xunzi’s time, and it is not difficult to see how Xunzi’s dim view of the original nature is at odds with Laozi’s “naturalness” and spontaneity (ziran). Likewise, Xunzi’s corollary, the need for human art and culture (wen) or artifice (wei) is directly opposed to the Daoist countercultural preference for “no deliberate or purposive action” (wu-wei) that would interfere with the natural spontaneity of zi ran. Thus the basic argument is more with Laozi than with Mencius, who would line up with Xunzi on these issues.

Further to the same point is Xunzi’s insistence on the need for value judgments as a premise for all action and effort. We have already seen this in Xunzi in the need to choose a proper starting point for one’s efforts, but it is most striking in the following passage: “If there is no dark and dogged will there will be no shining accomplishment; if there is no dull and determined effort there will be no brilliant achievement. He who tries to travel two roads at once will get nowhere” (SCT, 1:162).

After starting in the right place and choosing the right direction in which to go, the next choice to be made by those who need and want to learn is to have the proper aim in learning. It may surprise those who see the good of society as always, for Xunzi, dominating the individual, to find him quoting Confucius: “In antiquity learning was carried on for the sake of one’s self; today learning is carried on for the sake of others. The learning of the noble person is for the sake of beautifying himself; the learning of the lesser man is offering bird and beast [to win attention from others]” (SCT, 1:163).

In learning nothing works so well as to be near a person of learning. The Rites and the “Music” provide models but no explanations. The Odes and the Documents are devoted to antiquity and lack immediacy. The Spring and Autumn Annals is laconic and not readily acceptable. But following alongside a person of learning and repeating the explanations of the Noble Person bring one honor everywhere and allow one comprehensive knowledge of the world. Therefore it is said that “In learning nothing works so well as to be near a person of learning.”

(SCT, 1:163)

Here both teachers and classics are closely linked, but the need to learn from seasoned experience is the key. Classics offer the wisdom of past ages, but the accumulation of knowledge, especially through book learning, will not avail unless an experienced teacher is there to help one make wise choices among the array of received texts and traditions.

In the course of learning there is nothing more expedient than to devote yourself to a person of learning, and next to this is to pay homage to the rites. If you can neither devote yourself to a person of learning, and next to this pay homage to the rites, how will you do anything more than learn randomly or passively follow the Odes and the Documents? In this case you will never to the end of your days escape from being merely a vulgar pedant.

(SCT, 1:163)

The centrality of the classics in the curriculum is based on their survival through the ages, but the process of survival is not unaccompanied by problems of authenticity and disparate interpretation, so one needs help from an experienced teacher in learning how to sort things out. Venerable texts and respectful questions go together, and schools are indispensable to learning. Xunzi is thus a major advocate of both scholarship and education.

The noble person knows that what is not complete or what is not pure is unworthy to be called beautiful. Therefore he recites and reiterates so as to integrate it, reflects and ponders so as to comprehend it, determines his associations so that he may dwell in it, and eliminates what is harmful in order to preserve and nourish it. He causes his eyes to be devoid of any desire to see what is not right, and his mind to be devoid of any desire to think what is not right. Having arrived at this he takes utmost pleasure in it.

(SCT, 1:164)

In the above, Xunzi is talking about the self as a whole person and sees its fulfillment as something beautiful in itself—not a self socialized to fit in with or become a tool of society, much less one that is self-satisfied in terms of social success. At this point his desires are not so much indulged as truly satisfied, and “his mind will benefit more from it than in the possession of the world.” It has achieved something truly beautiful.

Therefore he cannot be subverted by power or profit, swayed by the masses and multitudes, or unsettled by the whole world. He follows this in life; he follows it in death—this is what is called holding firm to virtue. He who holds firm to virtue is able to order himself; being able to order himself, he can then respond to others. He who is able to order himself and respond to others is called the complete man. Heaven manifests itself in its brightness; earth manifests itself in its breadth; the noble person values his completeness.

(SCT, 1:164)

The word “complete” here has the sense of “brought to completeness,” fulfilled or perfected by “learning for oneself,” and not dependent on acceptance by others. It is an organic process whereby the individual’s self-fulfillment is both the starting point and the end of the process. Here again Xunzi’s concluding argument is not with Mencius, who largely shares his ideal of the noble person as one who is able to order himself and then respond to others, but lies rather in how he appropriates for himself the key values in Laozi, for whom the Way was above all a constant Way that when followed led to inner peace. The constancy of Xunzi’s noble person lies in following the Way of right desires in both life and death to achieve an inner peace, holding firm to an inner power (de) that is understood as true moral virtue, full of right desires (not “empty” of them).

For us as readers, this should be the actual starting point for understanding Xunzi, better than the idea that “human nature is evil.” And next, as Xunzi further explains, ritual is vital to the process, and the question naturally arises as to how ritual accords with personal self-fulfillment.

Ritual is the means by which one’s person is rectified; the teacher is the means by which ritual is rectified. Without ritual, how can you rectify yourself? Without a teacher, how can you know which ritual is correct? By behaving according to ritual, your emotions will find peace in ritual. By speaking as your teacher speaks, your understanding becomes like that of your teacher. When your emotions find peace in ritual and your understanding is like that of your teacher, then you have become a sage. Therefore to reject ritual is to be without a guide, and to renounce one’s teacher is to be without a teacher. Not to approve of a teacher and a guide, preferring to do everything your own way, is like relying on a blind man trying to distinguish colors or a deaf man, tones. There is no way to put aside chaos and confusion. Therefore learning means looking to ritual as your guide. The teacher takes his own person as the standard of proper conduct and values that in himself which is at peace.

(SCT, 1:166)

Some modern readers, prepared to believe that ritual is an imposition on the individual as a means of socialization or as an instrument of authoritarian repression, especially if this goes along with Xunzi’s view that “human nature is evil,” will find his chapter on ritual decorum most revealing. It gives the lie to any idea that for Xunzi the desires are intrinsically evil in themselves.

What is the origin of rites? I reply, human beings are born with desires, and when they do not achieve their desires, they cannot but seek the means to do so. If their seeking knows no limit or degree, they cannot but contend with one another. With contention comes chaos, and with chaos comes exhaustion. The ancient kings hated chaos and therefore established rites and rightness in order to limit it, to nurture people’s desires, and to give them a means of satisfaction. They saw to it that desires did not exhaust material things and that material things did not fall short of desires. Thus both desires and things were supported and satisfied. This was the origin of rites.

(SCT, 1:174–175)

Here the purpose of the rites is not to suppress desires but to “nurture” them and give them a means of satisfaction. However, satisfaction is not satiation. Both the rites and sense of rightness provide means by which reasonable satisfaction is kept within limits to avoid overindulgence and enervation of the desires. Balance is the key, and it is the key both for the nurturing of the desires and for the ordering of society. Rites do not just keep the individual in line. In fact, desires are actually to be sustained as a vital life energy. But sustaining desire and sustaining the socioeconomic order go together.

How society may be ordered so as to sustain human life and desire is a subject that Xunzi deals with in other important chapters of the text. But before we go on to these, let us take one last look at the main theme of the chapter on rites, which deals with more than just the sustaining or restraining of desires.

The supreme value here, as in the conclusion of chapter 1, is not social order or economic regulation, but beauty: “It is always true that rites, when they serve the living, are an adornment to joy and when they serve the dead, an adornment to grief. In sacrifices they are an adornment to reverence, and in military affairs, an adornment to authority. This was the same for the rites of the hundred kings; it is what unites antiquity and the present. The source for this we do not know” (SCT, 1:177).

Two things stand out here. First is the prime value of the rites as adorning or ornamenting life. Second is the acknowledgment by the rationalist Xunzi that the rites partake of the ultimate mystery of life. They are religious in their origin, as the graph for li (rites) clearly associates it with prayer and sacrificial offerings from time immemorial. This, however, lies beyond the range of human knowledge. What one can understand is how the rites and music serve to fulfill individual human desires, refining and elevating them.

Sacrificial rites give expression to the feelings of remembrance and longing for the dead. There inevitably come times when one is overwhelmed by emotions of grief and loss, and a loyal minister or a filial son finds that, even while others are given to the enjoyment of congenial company, these sorrowful emotions arrive. If when they come to him, and he is greatly moved, he nonetheless represses them, his feelings of remembrance and longing will be thwarted and unfulfilled, and his ritual practice will be deficient and incomplete. Therefore the ancient kings established certain forms so that the duty of honoring those who deserve honor and demonstrating affection for those who deserve affection might be fulfilled. Therefore I say that the sacrificial rites give expression to the feelings of remembrance and longing. They are the perfection of loyalty, good faith, love and reverence, and the flourishing of ritual deportment and refined demeanor.

(SCT, 1:177)

The rites are obviously social institutions, but their justification is no less the fulfillment of personal desires than of ensuring social stability. This takes us back to the early chapters on learning and self-cultivation as the prime foci of the work.

The terms used in the titles are fairly typical of Confucian discourse and in themselves suggest that Xunzi is working out of a received tradition. But numerous alternative teachings had appeared by his time, and, as we have seen in the indirect reference to Daoist thinkers above, Xunzi is speaking to a large and varied audience, the most influential of whom, beside the Daoists, are the school of Mozi and the Legalists.

Mozi and his followers were known for their populist moralism, which was accompanied by humanitarian activism, a “follow-the-leader” authoritarianism, a strict puritanical frugality, the rejection of offensive warfare, and a deprecation of Confucian elitism and high culture (especially ritual and the arts) and of what was alleged to be a Confucian fatalism implicit in the concept of Heaven’s destiny or mandate (tian-ming). In our discussion of human governance according to Xunzi, it will not be difficult to see how often he challenges Mohist pieties, puritanism, and antiintellectualism.

Besides the Mohist and Daoist views, those of the so-called Legalist school represented the greatest challenge to Xunzi. “Legalism” is an expression that has come to be applied to a growing movement in the statecraft of the late Zhou. “Legalism” focuses on one aspect of this development insofar as it stresses the need for uniform laws and heavy punishments. But penal law was only one feature of this broad movement, spoken of as the Fajia (“School of Law”), which dealt as much, if not more, with administrative and civil law—the systematic organization of power and resources (both material and human).

Indeed, fa has such a wide range of meanings that no one English word suffices: it includes both theoretical and practical methods of many kinds that could serve to strengthen the state. In fact, so flexible and adaptable was fa that it could be used later to render the basic but equally broad Buddhist concept of dharma (law, truth, teaching).

For all its wide uses, fa was also contested ground for Xunzi. To him it meant a prime model, and much of what follows here has to do with what that model, ultimate norm, or ideal should be. In that respect, he is taking up the challenge of the Legalists and contesting their most fundamental concept: the impersonality and impartiality of the law.

In the late Zhou period, as the enfeoffment system was weakening and the strengthening of the state was overcoming particularistic loyalties, both the Mohists and Legalists offered strategies to organize power and resources in ways that would benefit the “people” materially—providing for their most material needs or physical security, as the most common denominator among human beings. Both approaches would do this through strong leadership based on a more systematic organization of power.

Xunzi thought to achieve some of the same systematic organization, but through means less impersonal, dealing with the people less as a mass and more in recognition of their greater complexity and diversity. One key to this was to have a proper human model—one that could serve at once as a personal model for the ruler and as a model for the individual in realizing his full humanity. Both of these objectives could be satisfied by upholding the ideal of the truly noble person (junzi), exemplified at the top by the sage-king and at successive lower levels by a leadership ideal adapted to the particular needs at each level for personal and reciprocal working relationships.

The sage-king was of course a traditional ideal of the Confucians, but Xunzi updated it somewhat by choosing as his prime sages the founding fathers of the Zhou: King Wen and the Duke of Zhou. This brought the focus more within the reach of recorded history, as Xunzi’s exemplars were less like Mozi’s great hero, the Great Yü, whose mythic exploits were just barely imaginable. Xunzi’s treatment also differed from the typical Legalist deprecation of the traditional sages, who were dismissed as icons of a past no longer relevant to the contemporary situation. According to Xunzi, the founding fathers of the Zhou had bequeathed to posterity institutions (primarily rites) that could serve as workable norms. Although Xunzi often referred in general to the “Hundred Kings” as sages, for practical purposes it was the constitutional order of King Wen and the Duke of Zhou that emphasized workable, historically verifiable norms.

Thus far, Xunzi’s conception of the fa as model or norm, though differing from the Mohists and Legalists (to say nothing of the Daoists) does not depart from Confucian usage in essential respects. Most Confucians looked to King Wen and the Duke of Zhou as models, and their exemplary actions (xian fa) were regarded as constitutional precedents (hence the same term is applied to modern constitutions). Even Mencius noted how important institutional or programmatic models were to sage rule.

After stressing the need for the ruler to develop his own inner sensitivity and employ empathetic virtue as a bond with the people at large, he insisted that subjective virtue and good intentions were not enough; proper models were also needed:

Though one may have a human heart and a reputation for humaneness, one from whom the people receive no benefits will not serve as a model (fa) for later generations because he does not practice the Way of the Former Kings. Therefore it is said “Goodness alone does not suffice for the conduct of government. Laws (fa) alone do not implement themselves.… No one has ever erred by following the laws (fa) of the former kings.”

(Mencius 4A1; SCT, 1:136–137)

The models that Mencius refers to, such as the land and tax systems, evoke vivid, concrete images such as the well fields, which memorably illustrate key principles of equality and community cooperation for the common good. Xunzi does not neglect such things, but he sums them up succinctly:

On the model of a king: He fixes the several rates of taxation, regulates affairs, and utilizes the myriad things in order to nourish the myriad people. From the product of the fields, the tax rate is one part in ten. At the barriers and in the marketplaces, goods are inspected, but no tax is imposed. The mountains and forests, marshes and weirs, are closed or opened according to the season, but taxes are not levied. Land is inspected for its quality, and taxes are differentially assessed. The distance over which goods must be transported is taken into account in fixing tribute payments. The circulation of resources and grain is unimpeded, allowing them to be offered and exchanged so that “all within the four seas are like one family.”

(SCT, 1:169)

This may not be surprising if one remembers that it is also the guiding theme of Xunzi’s first chapter, which discusses learning how to become a complete human being who is also capable of true leadership because he is able to make the necessary value distinctions. What is added to the microscopic personification of the Noble Person is the holistic conception that places this human ideal at the center of a cosmic order. Again, Xunzi sums this up in his chapter on the “Regulations of a King”:

Heaven and Earth are the beginning of life; rites and rightness are the beginning of order; and the noble person is the beginning of rites and rightness. Enacting them, practicing them, accumulating them, and loving them more than anything else—this is the beginning of the noble person. Therefore Heaven and Earth produce the noble person, and the noble person forms a triad with Heaven and Earth; he is the agent of the myriad things, father and mother of the people.

(SCT, 1:169)

Here the Noble Person is the ideal king, the Son of Heaven, who plays a crucial role in realizing the creative powers of Heaven and Earth. A later chapter expands on this idea and explains more precisely the human role in this process:

To bring to completion without acting, to obtain without seeking—this is called the working of Heaven. Thus, although one is profound, he does not contemplate it; although great, he adds nothing to its ability; although clever, he does not attempt to search it out. Hence it is said that he does not contend with Heaven for its work; Heaven has its seasons; Earth has its resources; man has his government. For this reason it is said that they may form a triad. If one abandons that which allows him to form a triad, yet longs for the triad, he is deluded.

(SCT, 1:171)

Elsewhere, Xunzi dwells on the constancy and self-sufficiency of Heaven and Earth. It is left to humankind to observe this order and adapt it to its own needs for ordered governance, without trying to complete or contend with them by supernatural means, instead reproducing that order and regularity in those affairs of men within human control.

Inherent in this triadic order is the principle of the differentiation of function (each has its own sphere), and the sage-king’s task is to extend that function to human governance through the defining of distinct roles. However, in contrast to the Mohists and Legalists, for whom functionality is understood primarily in utilitarian, material terms, Xunzi sees it in social relations as defined by the rites. Differentiation is the natural order of things, and the rites deal with all things respectfully, according to their proper natures—respectfully and, of course, beautifully, as Heaven and Earth naturally do, but also elegantly, as the sage-king, the Noble Person, and the Son of Heaven should do.

Much of Xunzi’s Regulations of the King and other chapters dealing with human governance are devoted not to the economic, political, and legal systems (fa) that occupy Mozi and the Legalists but to establishing a hierarchy of value distinctions congruent with a viable social structure—a social system that is personalized and a political system based on merit and ability, not birth or inheritance. Class distinctions count, but they must defer to moral worth and life-sustaining values, balancing personal respect with service of the common good.

Xunzi is by no means oblivious to the need for practical statecraft. In fact, he gives special credit to statesmen like the Duke of Zhou who provided executive leadership to the founding of the Zhou, and he devotes much attention to the choice of prime ministers, who set the tone for all administrative services.

Through it all, and supporting it all, there must be a hierarchy of values, a structured order that provides the constancy, reliability, security, and order that should be man’s distinctive contribution to the harmonious, complementary functioning of Heaven, Earth, and Humankind.

At the central axis of this universe would be Xunzi’s Noble Person, serving in the role of sage-king, Son of Heaven, kingpin, or what-have-you at every level of the hierarchy. But if Xunzi were right about the evil in human nature, the Noble Person, the Beautiful Person, the Elegant Person would not have much company. Anyone can do it, Xunzi says, but few actually make it. The Noble Man as sage-king will be there at the top, pretty much alone in his solitary, unmatched splendor.