|
Related Links in the GSR:
Related Links in the Library:
Born around 371 B.C. to a minor noble family in the small state of Tsou in
the present-day province of Shandong, Mencius received an excellent education
that started at an early age. His father died when he was three, but his mother
took a keen interest in her child's well-being and moved the family near a school
so that Mencius would grow up in the proper environment. As a young scholar
Mencius was tutored by the grandson of Confucius, Tzu Ssu, and he soon became
a leading expert in Confucian thought in his own right. For a brief time he
served as a state official in the state of Ch'i, but political conditions were
still unstable throughout China (Period of Warring States, 481-221 B.C.) and
Mencius believed he could help bring order by tutoring the princes of the various
provinces.
Mencius instructed his pupils that a stable and happy society is one in which
princes guard the well-being of the common people by promoting economic growth
and education. Both objectives, he argued, could be attained only if the princes
lowered taxes, allowed for free trade, and conserved resources, especially human
ones, by restraining themselves from unnecessary warfare. His underlying view
of the essential good of human nature, when freed from abusive power, is basically
the same as that of Confucius: "The tendency of man's nature to good
is like the tendency of water to flow downwards. There are none but have this
tendency to good, just as all water flows downwards."1
By the time of his death, in 289 B.C., Mencius was regarded as the "Second
Sage."
Endnotes
[1] Mencius, The Works of Mencius,
in The Four Books, trans. James Legge (New York: Paragon Books, 1966),
pp. 851-52. Emphasis added by Pierre Goodrich.
Bibliography
Works by the Author
Mencius. Three Ways of Thought in Ancient China. Translated by Arthur Waley.
London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1939.
Mencius. The Four Books. Translated by James Legge. South Pasadena: Ione Perkins.
Source
The biographical material about the author originally appeared on The
Goodrich Room: Interactive Tour website.
|
Resources 
