The Civilization of China by Herbert A. Giles

Chinese philosophy covers altogether too large a field to be dealt with, even in outline, on a scale suitable to this volume; only a few of its chief features can possibly be exhibited in the space at disposal.

Beginning with moral philosophy, we are confronted at once with what was in early days an extremely vexed question; not perhaps entirely set at rest even now, but allowed to remain in suspense amid the universal acceptance of Confucian teachings. Confucius himself taught in no indistinct terms that man is born good, and that he becomes evil only by contact with evil surroundings. He does not enlarge upon this dogma, but states it baldly as a natural law, little anticipating that within a couple of centuries it was to be called seriously in question. It remained for his great follower, Mencius, born a hundred years later, to defend the proposition against all comers, and especially against one of no mean standing, the philosopher Kao (_Cow_). Kao declared that righteousness is only to be got out of man's nature in the same way that good cups and bowls are to be got out of a block of willow wood, namely, by care in fashioning them. Improper workmanship would produce bad results; good workmanship, on the other hand, would produce good results. In plain words, the nature of man at birth is neither good nor bad; and what it becomes afterwards depends entirely upon what influences have been brought to bear and in what surroundings it has come to maturity. Mencius met this argument by showing that in the process of extracting cups and bowls from a block of wood, the wood as a block is destroyed, and he pointed out that, according to such reasoning, man's nature would also be destroyed in the process of getting righteousness out of it.