Mengzi - 孟子

Mencius (372 – 289 BCE) was the synthesizer and developer of applied Confucian thought. Before he died at the age 84, he was said to have completed the editorial work of Confucius.

Mencius served as counselor to princes in the state of Qi and later visited other states to advice on government. After about 15 years he appears to have concluded that while treated with respect, he was offering advice that was ignored. Many of the kings and princes at that time were interested in pleasure and conquest rather than theories of good government. Mencius therefore retired from active life and turned to philosophy and the compilation of the substantial book that bears his name.

Mencius emphasized the significance of the common citizens in the state. While Confucianism generally regards rulers highly, he argued that it is acceptable for the subjects to overthrow or even kill a ruler who ignores the people's needs and rules harshly. This is because a ruler who does not rule justly is no longer a true ruler.

Human nature has an innate tendency towards goodness, but moral rightness cannot be instructed down to the last detail. This is why merely external controls always fail in improving society. True improvement results from educational cultivation in favorable environments. Likewise, bad environments tend to corrupt the human will.


According to Mencius, education must awaken the innate abilities of the human mind. He denounced memorization and advocated active interrogation of the text, saying, "One who believes all of a book would be better off without books." One should check for internal consistency by comparing sections and debate the probability of factual accounts by comparing them with experience.