Human Nature

The ancient sage Mencius (or Meng Zi, 孟子，372-289 BC) declared the innate human nature is good. He believed that human nature will deteriorate without positive cultivating influence, so education is very important.

During the same period, the other sage Xun Zi (荀子，300-230 BC) believed that people are born with natural tendencies toward “evil” and ethic norms should be established to rectify people.

Is the human nature good or bad? It is always a problem to me. I ever believed the innate human nature is good because every newborn has a pure and kind appearance. Also, it is very easy for me to be kind and it is self-hurting to be mean.

I observe that a lot of people are just naturally mean. Wicked thoughts haunt in their minds; mean words pop up from their mouths effortlessly. They do things which hurt people without helping themselves. They instinctively believe human nature is mean.

Now, I think we can not generally say people are born to be good or bad. I would rather say that some people are innately good and some people are innately evil.

If you are a kind person, just behave kindly and nicely with your principle. Believe in cause-effect and the mighty power of kindness and goodness.

The evil people will be haunted by their evildoings and evil words. I witnessed cause-effect worked faster and better than law in several cases. However, God sleeps sometime. That’s the reason we need legal system.