## 1. Xunzi and *Xunzi*



The name Xunzi means Master Xun and refers to Xun Kuang
Xun Kuang , who was renowned in his day as "the most
revered of teachers" (*zui wei laoshi*
Zui Wei Lao Shi ). His precise dates are unknown, and
extant sources contradict one another: in particular, there is
disagreement as to whether he journeyed to the philosophical center of
Qi Qi  at the age of fifteen *sui* Sui  (i.e. thirteen
or fourteen years of age) or fifty *sui* (forty-eight or
forty-nine). The former figure is more plausible (Goldin 1999:
110n.13; Knoblock 1982-83: 33-34), and would indicate a
year of birth sometime around 310 BCE All we can surmise of his death
is that it must have been after 238 BCE, because he was alive when his
patron, Lord Chunshen Chun Shen Jun , was assassinated in
that year. Virtually all available information about his life comes
either from internal references in *Xunzi*, the posthumously
edited collection of his works, or from his biography in *Records
of the Historian* Shi Ji , by Sima Qian
Si Ma Qian  (145?-86? BCE), which is known to
contain serious distortions, especially in its treatment of famous
philosophers (Kern 2015). Hence modern attempts to piece together Xun
Kuang's life (such as Knoblock 1988-94: I, 3-35; and
Liao Mingchun 2005: 535-46) are necessarily tentative.



Sima Qian relates that Xunzi polished his voluminous writings in his
old age, but they do not survive in his own recension. All extant
editions of *Xunzi* derive from a compilation by Liu Xiang
Liu Xiang  (79-8 BCE), a palace librarian who located 322
bamboo bundles of text (*pian* Pian ) that he confidently
attributed to Xunzi, of which he eliminated 290 as duplicates. These
high numbers suggest that Xunzi's essays had been circulating
independently for about two centuries (Sato 2003: 27-36). The
general consensus today is that *Xunzi* is a collection of
predominantly authentic essays, but certainly not organized in a
manner that Xun Kuang himself had authorized (e.g., Knoblock
1988-94: I, 105-28). One indication of the diversity of
Liu Xiang's sources is that a few chapters (notably "A
Debate about Warfare" ["Yibing" Yi Bing ])
refer to Xunzi as Sun Qingzi Sun Qing Zi , "Master
Chamberlain Sun", a title that he himself would not have
 used.[1]
 The chapter divisions, in particular, seem unreliable: whereas some
chapters read like self-standing essays, others do not. In
"Refutation of Physiognomy" ("Feixiang"
Fei Xiang ), for example, only the opening lines deal with
physiognomy; the rest of the chapter seems to consist of stray
passages that Liu Xiang did not quite know where to insert. There are
also some chapters with generic instructional material, as well as
poems and rhymed riddles that are rarely studied (Knechtges 1989). One
of the consequences of this arrangement is that reconstructing
Xunzi's arguments requires reading across chapter boundaries:
taken as a whole, the book conveys a distinctive philosophical
position, but individual chapters are inadequate, indeed sometimes
incoherent, on their own (Kern 2016; Hutton 2014:
xviii-xxiii).


## 2. Human Nature (*xing* Xing )



Chapter
 23,[2]
 "Human Nature is Evil" (*Xing'e*
Xing E ), is a reasonable point of entry into Xunzi's
philosophy for multiple reasons: it exemplifies some of the textual
problems mentioned above; it addresses one of the core themes of the
collection; and it was, for centuries, the most frequently cited
section of *Xunzi*.



First, the two keywords need to be unpacked. *Xing*, commonly
translated as "human nature", is a term of uncertain
etymology that earlier philosophers had used in subtly dissimilar
ways. Mencius (372-289 BCE?), for example, used it to refer to
the ideal state than an organism is expected to attain under the right
conditions, or perhaps an innate tendency toward that state (Graham
1989: 117-32; Graham 1990: 7-66). Famously, Mencius argued
that the *xing* of human beings is good (*shan*
Shan ), by which he meant that all human beings *have the
capacity to become* good, even though, in reality, not all people
are good, because they fail to exert themselves sufficiently--or
even take the obligation seriously.



In *Xunzi*, "Human Nature is Evil" is framed as an
argument with Mencius (who was probably long dead), and takes the view
that the *xing* of human beings is the very opposite of
*shan*, namely *e*. The basic meaning of *e* is
close to "detestable" (as a transitive verb, *wu*
E  means "to hate"); the translation
"evil" is acceptable only with the understanding that
something like an Augustinian conception of evil is not intended.
(Some scholars opt for "bad", another standard antonym of
"good" in English.) But in prosecuting this position,
Xunzi uses *xing* in a fundamentally different sense:
"What is so by birth is called *xing*"
(*Xunzi*
 22.1b).[3]
 Thus *xing* refers to the basic faculties, capacities, and
desires that we have from birth, which cannot be called
"good" because following the impulses of our
*xing*, without reflecting on them and moderating them, will
lead us to act harmfully (Hutton 2000; Tang 2016: 51).



In effect, both Xunzi and Mencius argued that human beings all have
the capacity to become good, even though some people develop this
capacity and others do not (Graham 1989: 250; Shun 1997:
222-31). The main differences, only recently appreciated, are
that they were not operating with the same implicit definitions of
*xing*, and Xunzi's recommendations for moral
self-cultivation--that is, how to overcome one's inherently
detestable nature--were more complex than Mencius's, as we
shall see. Because of Mencius's subsequent prestige, it was
commonly supposed that Xunzi's definition of *xing* was
heterodox, if not deliberately subversive. But a collection of
Confucian manuscripts recently excavated from a tomb near the modern
town of Guodian Guo Dian  and dated to ca. 300 BCE suggests
that it may have been *Mencius's* usage of *xing*,
not Xunzi's, which was considered eccentric in ancient
 times.[4]
 The Guodian text called *The Xing
Emerges from the Endowment* (*Xing zi ming chu*
Xing Zi Ming Chu ) defines *xing* in a manner
very similar to Xunzi: the set of inborn characteristics shared by all
members of a species (Goldin 2005: 38).



Fixating on the title "Human Nature Is Evil" (which may or
may not derive from Xunzi himself) can lead to an elision of the
second half of the chapter's credo: "what is good [in
people] is their artifice" (*qi shan zhe wei ye*
Qi Shan Zhe Wei Ye ). "Artifice"
 (*wei*)[5]
 refers to all the traits and habits that we acquire through our own
conscious actions. And if we achieve any goodness, it must be because
of our artifice: whereas 



> 
> 
> obeying one's *xing* and following one's emotions
> must result in contention and robbery ... the transformation
> [brought about by] the methods of a teacher and the Way of ritual and
> morality will result in deference and courtesy, in accordance with
> refinement and principles, and return to order. (*Xunzi* 23.1a)
> 
> 
> 
> 



Thus the phrase that is used to denote moral self-cultivation is not
to overcome or abandon the *xing*, but *to transform* it
(*huaxing* Hua Xing ). For this reason, in addition to
stylistic features that trouble some readers, the chapter is
occasionally impugned as corrupt or inauthentic (Robins 2001-02;
Zhou Chicheng 2014).


## 3. Modes of Moral Self-Cultivation: Ritual (*li* Li ) and Music (*yue* Le )



What prompted Xunzi to dissent from Mencius's characterization
of *xing* as good if he ultimately agreed with Mencius's
larger view: that people can perfect themselves and that such an
achievement requires great exertion and self-motivation? Perhaps Xunzi
wished to highlight his conviction that the proper models for moral
behavior lie outside the self, which is fundamentally opposed to a
Mencian notion of Four Beginnings (*siduan* Si Duan )
lodged within the human heart (e.g., *Mencius* 2A.6). Whereas
Mencians have always emphasized looking inwards for moral
direction--sometimes complicated by the acknowledgment that the
heart can be corrupted--self-cultivation in the Xunzian style is
inconceivable without looking *outwards*.



Xunzi held that for most ordinary people, the best guide is the set of
rituals (*li*) handed down by sages of yore (*sheng*
Sheng  or *shengren* Sheng Ren ). What are rituals and
why did the sages institute them? In some passages, Xunzi attributes,
in a manner superficially reminiscent of Hobbes or Rousseau, the
genesis of the rituals to the sages' recognition that unbridled
competition produces a globally unsustainable situation: 



> 
> 
> If people follow their desires, then boundaries cannot contain them
> and objects cannot satisfy them. Thus the Former Kings restrained them
> and established for them ritual and morality in order to divide them
> [into classes]. (*Xunzi* 4.12; cf. 19.1a) 
> 
> 
> 



Sometimes these rituals are described as efficient social conventions
(e.g., Perkins 2014: 189-97), but this is inadequate for two
reasons.



First, Xunzi elsewhere explicitly denies that an arbitrarily chosen
set of rituals would be effective. Rather, the rituals of the sage
kings are legitimate because they accord with "that which makes
humans human" (*ren zhi suoyi wei ren zhe*
Ren Zhi Suo Yi Wei Ren Zhe ); by
implication, any competing ritual code would necessarily fail.
Specifically, human beings, unlike any other species of animal, abide
by certain distinctions (*bian* Bian )--male is
distinguished from female, old from young, and so on--and it is
altogether natural that we do so. The rituals of the sage kings
confirm the distinctions that we are bound to make by nature (the core
text is *Xunzi* 5.4; see also 10.3a and 19.1c).



Second, rituals, in Xunzi's conception, not only facilitate
social cohesion, but also foster moral and psychological development
(Ivanhoe 2014; Yearley 2014: 92-101). Indeed, if they did not,
they would be mere instruments of expedience, not rituals. These
dimensions become clear when Xunzi begins to discuss specific rituals
and their purposes. We observe regulations concerning funerary
ceremonies and grave goods, for example, in order to learn how to
avoid incivility and miserliness (19.4a-b). Similarly, the mandatory
three-year mourning period for deceased rulers and parents helps us
conduct ourselves properly by providing suitable forms for us to
express emotions that are so deep as to be potentially debilitating:




> 
> 
> When a wound is colossal, its duration is long; when pain is profound,
> the recovery is slow. The three-year mourning period is a form
> established with reference to emotions; it is the means by which one
> conveys the acme of one's pain. (*Xunzi* 19.9a)
> 
> 
> 



One ritual discussed *in extenso* is the village wine-drinking
ceremony (*xiang* Xiang ). The fact that the host fetches the
guest of honor himself, but expects the other guests to arrive on
their own, underscores the distinctions that need to be drawn between
noble and base. And the detail that each participant toasts the next,
serially and according to their ages, demonstrates that one can align
society according to seniority without excluding anyone. When the
guest of honor retires, the host bows and escorts him out, and the
formal occasion comes to an end: this is to make it known that one can
feast at leisure without becoming disorderly. The clear implication is
that by taking part in the rite, we can gradually comprehend the moral
principles that the sages wished us to embody (*Xunzi*
20.5).



Xunzi's rituals have such an important role to play in our
emotional and moral development that he spends an entire chapter
limning what are essentially rituals of artistic expression. The term
he uses is "music" (*yue*), which is distinct from
ritual, but Xunzi's conception of their origin and purpose is so
similar that we can scarcely speak of one without the other. Thus
"ritual and music" (*liyue*) can only be understood
as two aspects of human artifice (*wei*): "ritual"
refers to cultural forms that affect social cohesion,
"music" to those involving the orderly expression of human
emotions. The crucial point is that the sages created both.



Like all Confucians, Xunzi accepts that human beings have certain
irrepressible impulses (*Xunzi* 20.1), which are not
objectionable in themselves. The problem is that unreflective
outbursts driven solely by emotional responses may cause harm, and
thus we are enjoined to be mindful of our impulses, rather than to
extinguish them (compare *Xunzi* 22.5a). To aid us in this
process, the Sages left behind appropriate musical compositions that
we can use to channel our need to express ourselves. What Xunzi meant
by this is the canonical collection of *Odes* (*Shi*
Shi ), which all Confucians seem to have regarded as a nonpareil
repository of edifying literature (Goldin 2005: 35).



Xunzi's immediate purpose in this section was to counter the
Mohist view that music is wasteful. Xunzi counters that by focusing
exclusively on the material costs, Mo Di Mo Di  (d. ca. 390
BCE) and his followers failed to recognize the psychological utility
of music as an instrument of moral suasion (Cook 1997: 21-24;
Graham 1989: 259-61). 



> 
> 
> When music is centered and balanced, the people are harmonious and not
> dissipated. When music is stern and grave, the people are uniform and
> not disorderly. When the people are harmonious and uniform, the army
> is firm and the citadels secure; enemy states dare not invade.
> (*Xunzi* 20.2)
> 
> 
> 



As the last quote intimates, the proper implementation of ritual is
also decisive in politics and international
 relations.[6]
 In the "Debate about Warfare", for example, Xunzi offers
a distinctive variant of the old Confucian idea that a true king
(*wang* Wang --always a moral term in Confucian
discourse) will succeed on the battlefield without even having to
fight, because the populace will not support a tyrant or hegemon
(*ba* Ba , a lord who rules by brute force). What is
unique is Xunzi's emphasis on ritual as the key to a
well-ordered state. To be sure, earlier writings had also discussed
the idea of ritual as the foundation of statecraft, and the *Zuo
Commentary to the Springs and Autumns* (*Zuozhuan*
Zuo Chuan ), in particular, is famous for its scenes in which a
ruler who is about to attack his neighbor publicly justifies his
aggression on the grounds that he is merely "punishing"
his enemy's intolerable violations of ritual. But Xunzi raises
the significance of ritual to a new level: in his view, the
ruler's ability to govern his state in accordance with ritual is
the sole criterion that will determine success or failure on the
battlefield (*Xunzi* 15.1c; see also *Xunzi* 16.1).



Having established that "exalting ritual" (*longli*
Long Li ) is the true path to order and strength, Xunzi
expatiates in characteristic language: 



> 
> 
> When kings and dukes follow [the rituals], that is how they obtain the
> world; when they do not follow them, that is how they bring about the
> perdition of their altars of soil and grain. (*Xunzi* 15.4)
> 
> 
> 
> 



Even advanced military technology is no match for a king who
"exalts ritual and esteems morality".



Accordingly, in two passages assessing the mighty state of Qin
Qin --which would go on to unify the Chinese world under the
infamous First Emperor (r. 221-210 BCE)--Xunzi acknowledged
its power but diagnosed a correctible weakness: it lacked schooled
moral advisors (like himself) to guide the ruler and save him from
self-defeating avarice and aggression. Such counselors, moreover,
should have a Confucian orientation (*Xunzi* 8.2-10 and
16.4-6). The judgment of most ancient writers is that Qin never
corrected this weakness.


## 4. The Source of the Rituals: Heaven (*tian* Tian ) and the Way (*dao* Dao )



Xunzi places so much emphasis on the role of the rituals in moral
self-cultivation that one might ask how the sages managed to perfect
themselves when they did not have such a model themselves. A glimpse
of the answer was already afforded by Xunzi's insistence that
the rituals surpass any arbitrary code of conduct because they accord
with fundamental human tendencies. But elsewhere the question is
addressed more fully. The rituals, it turns out, are the equivalent of
helpful signposts. Just as those who ford rivers "mark"
(*biao* Biao ) treacherous spots, the sages "marked
the Way" (*biao dao* Biao Dao ) by means of
rituals, so that people would no longer stumble (*Xunzi*
17.11).



The Way that Xunzi invokes in this simile is sometimes called
"constancy" (*chang* Chang ). Heaven's
processes (*tianxing* Tian Xing ) do not change from one
epoch to the
 next;[7]
 thus one must learn how to respond to them with "the right
order" (*zhi* Zhi ), whereafter it would be either
ignorant or hypocritical to blame Heaven for one's misfortune.
When a ruler governs a state well, there are bound to be good results;
when a ruler governs a state badly, there are bound to be bad results.
Disasters can have no long-term consequences because a well governed
state will prosper even in the face of disasters, and a poorly
governed state will be vanquished even if it avoids disasters
altogether. (Xunzi's opinion of foreseeable natural disasters
such as hurricanes would undoubtedly have been that they strike
*all* states, but a well governed state will be prepared for
such an event, whereas a poorly governed state will be in no position
to respond to the crisis.) Consequently, Heaven plays a sure but
indirect role in determining our fortune or misfortune. Heaven never
intercedes directly in human affairs, but human affairs are certain to
succeed or fail according to a timeless pattern that Heaven determined
before human beings existed. "The revolutions of the sun, moon,
and stars, and the cyclical calendar--these were the same under
Yu Yu  and Jie Jie " (*Xunzi* 17.4), he notes,
referring to a paradigmatic sage king and tyrant, respectively. The
same is true of the regular and predictable sequence of the
seasons--a particularly significant example, as we shall see.



Next, Xunzi makes a crucial distinction between knowing Heaven
(*zhi tian* Zhi Tian ) and knowing the Way (*zhi
dao* Zhi Dao ). The former is impossible, and therefore a
waste of time to attempt, but the latter is open to all who try. To
cite a modern parallel, it is not difficult to understand *how*
the force of gravity works by carefully observing its effects in the
phenomenal world, but to understand *why* gravity works is a
different matter altogether. Xunzi would say that one should constrain
one's inquiries to learning how gravity works, and then think
about how to apply this irresistible force of nature to improve the
lives of humankind (Fraser 2016: 297-300). His attitude was not
scientific in our sense. Speaking of "those who are enlightened
about the distinction between Heaven and human beings", he
says:



> 
> Their aspiration with respect to Heaven is no more than to observe the
> phenomena that can be taken as regular periods (e.g., the progression
> of the seasons or stars). Their aspiration with respect to Earth is no
> more than to observe the matters that yield (sc. crops). Their
> aspiration with respect to the four seasons is no more than to observe
> the data that can be made to serve [humanity]. Their aspiration with
> respect to *yin* Yin  and *yang* Yang  is no more
> than to observe their harmonious [interactions] that can bring about
> order. (*Xunzi* 17.3b)
> 



Thus rituals are not merely received practices or convenient social
institutions; they are practicable forms in which the sages aimed to
encapsulate the fundamental patterns of the universe. No human being,
not even a sage, can know Heaven, but we can know Heaven's Way,
which is the surest path to a flourishing and blessed life. Because
human beings have limited knowledge and abilities, it is difficult for
us to attain this deep understanding, and therefore the sages handed
down the rituals to help us follow in their footsteps.


## 5. Is the Way Discovered or Constructed?



Although this discussion has presented the Way as an unchanging
cosmological reality to which we must conform (or suffer the
consequences), it is sometimes understood, rather, as having been
constructed by human beings. A.C. Graham first raised this issue by
asking, "Is Xunzi saying that man imposes his own meaning on an
otherwise meaningless universe?" (Graham 1989: 243). Although
Graham himself answered his question in the negative, others have
since pressed the point further. This is probably the greatest
controversy in Xunzi studies today.



One passage, in particular, is frequently cited as support for a
constructivist position (Hagen 2007: 11.n31; Tang 2016: 59, 75, 118):
"The Way is not the Way of Heaven, nor the Way of Earth; it is
what people regard as the Way, what the noble man is guided by"
(*Xunzi* 8.3). This seems to say, despite what we have seen
about apprehending the constancy of Heaven and then applying it
profitably to daily life, that we are supposed to disregard the Way of
Heaven, and create our own Way instead. The basic problem is that the
surviving text of *Xunzi* is vague enough to permit various
interpretations, but the repeated references to the importance of
observing and appropriately "responding" (*ying*
Ying ) to the seasons would seem to rule out the interpretation
that natural patterns are not to be taken as normative.



Yang Liang Yang Jing  (fl. 818 CE), the author of the oldest
extant commentary on *Xunzi*, evidently recognized this
problem, and tried to soften the impact of *Xunzi* 8.3 by
making it fit with the rest of the text: 



> 
> 
> This emphasizes that the Way of the Former Kings was not a matter of
> *yin* and *yang*, or mountains and rivers, or omens and
> prodigies, but the Way that people practice. 
> 
> 
> 



Yang Liang's opinion is surely not decisive: he was but an
interpreter, not the master himself, and his glosses are not always
regarded as the most compelling today. But in this case he may have
been right that Xunzi meant to say no more than that the Way is to be
found not in prodigies and other freakish occurrences, but in the
"constancies" that people can put into practice. Indeed,
the very notion that the Way of Heaven, the Way of Earth, and the Way
of human beings are distinct entities would contradict the frequently
reiterated point that there is only one Way, e.g., "There are no
two Ways in the world, and the Sage is never of two minds"
(*Xunzi* 21.1). This single and holistic Way, moreover, serves
as the enduring standard for all times because all ramified truths of
the universe are unified within it (*Xunzi* 5.5, 21.6b, and
22.6b).



What we need to understand, then, is the Way *as it pertains to
human beings*. Unusual celestial phenomena such as shooting stars
must, theoretically, be explainable by a comprehensive formulation of
the Way--there can be no *violations* of the Way in the
natural world--but this is exactly why we do not aim for a
comprehensive formulation of the Way (cf. Hutton 2016a: 81-83).
We can safely ignore shooting stars as irrelevant to human beings
because they do not provide replicable patterns for use in moral and
social development. Responding to the seasons with timely planting and
harvesting is, once again, a more productive model.


## 6. Portents (*yao* Xian )



In accordance with his notion of the Way as the observable
"constancies" that can be profitably applied to human
conduct, Xunzi argued strongly against the notion that weird
occurrences on earth can be rationalized as monitory signs from
Heaven. Superficially terrifying occurrences such as shooting stars or
squalling trees are merely "shifts in Heaven and Earth,
transformations of *yin* and *yang*, material
anomalies" (*Xunzi* 17.7). We should be concerned instead
with "human portents" (*renyao* Ren Xian ),
a term that would have seemed as counterintuitive in Xunzi's
language as it does in ours. "Human portents" are the many
shortsighted and immoral acts through which human beings bring on
their own destruction: "poor plowing that harms the harvest,
hoeing and weeding out of season, governmental malice that causes the
loss of the people" (*Xunzi* 17.7). Heaven has no part in
such wrongdoing. Now and then strange things may happen in the skies,
but they have happened at all moments in history, and they have never
been sufficient to destroy a prudent and moral society--whereas
an imprudent and immoral society will fail even if it is spared an
eclipse.



Xunzi even extends this theory of "human portents" to
contend that religious ceremonies have no numinous effect; we carry
them out merely for their inherent beauty and the social cohesion that
they
 promote.[8]




> 
> 
> If the sacrifice for rain [is performed], and it rains, what of it? I
> say: It is nothing. Even if there had been no sacrifice, it would have
> rained. ... Thus the noble man takes [these ceremonies] to be
> embellishment, but the populace takes them to be spiritual. To take
> them as embellishment is auspicious; to take them as spiritual is
> inauspicious. (*Xunzi* 17.8)
> 
> 
> 


## 7. Rectifying Names (*zhengming* Zheng Ming )



Xunzi's famous essay on language, "Rectifying Names"
("Zhengming" Zheng Ming ) includes some impressive
insights into the nature of verbal communication (William S-Y. Wang
1989: 186-89), but the primary concern of the chapter is
morality, not linguistics (Fraser 2016: 293-96). The thrust of
the essay is easily missed because a few of Xunzi's comments
sound as though they came out of a modern pragmatics textbook, e.g.,
"Names have no inherent appropriateness. We designate them [by
some word] in order to name them" (*Xunzi* 22.2g).
Although this may sound like something that Ferdinand de Saussure
(1857-1913) could have written, Xunzi was not interested in the
same questions as modern linguists. In "Rectifying Names",
Xunzi also discusses sophistic paradoxes that were rampant in his day
(the most famous being "A white horse is not a
 horse"),[9]
 dividing them into three typological categories. His conclusion
discloses that his main purpose is not a proper taxonomy of falsidical
paradoxes (for this term, see Quine 1976: 3), but an assertion of the
moral purpose of language: 



> 
> 
> All heretical theories and aberrant sayings depart from the correct
> Way and are presumptuously crafted according to these three categories
> of delusion. (*Xunzi* 22.3d) 
> 
> 
> 



The paradoxes of the sophists cannot be used as a basis for moral
governance, and thus would be objectionable even if they were not in
fact false; they are "disputes with no use"
(*Xunzi* 6.6).



The only legitimate purpose of language, like that of government
itself, is to serve as the king's tool in propagating moral
excellence: 



> 
> 
> When one who is a king determines names, if names are fixed and
> realities distinguished, if the Way is practiced and his intentions
> communicated, then he may cautiously lead the people and unify them by
> this means. (*Xunzi* 22.1c) 
> 
> 
> 



The task of determining names and then enforcing their use belongs to
the king alone, not to any lord and certainly not to the people.
"One who is a king" (*wangzhe* Wang Zhe )
refers not to the person who happens to be sitting on the throne, but
someone who has lived up to the moral requirements of that office and
duly rules the world by his charismatic example. Accordingly, a phrase
like "leading and unifying the people" refers not to
expedient rulership, but to implementing the Confucian project of
morally transforming the world. Language is useful in that enterprise
because, without it, the people could not even understand the
ruler's wishes, let alone carry them out.



Just as the rituals need to be based on the foundation of the Way, the
ruler's names, though they can be arbitrary as designations,
must correspond to reality. You can make up the word for
"reality", but you cannot make up reality. "Same and
different" (*tongyi* Tong Yi ) are distinguished
by the so-called "Heaven-endowed bureaux"
(*tianguan* Tian Guan ), i.e. the eyes, ears, mouth,
nose, body, and heart-mind. For most of these, we might say
"senses" or "sense organs" in English, but the
heart-mind (*xin* Xin ) is an exceptional case, for it is
said to be able to distinguish "statements, reasons, happiness,
resentment, grief, joy, love, hate, and desire" (*Xunzi*
22.d), which are not simply sense data. The heart-mind will be treated
more fully in the next section.



The suggestion that we rely upon our senses to perceive the world
around us represents a substantial claim on Xunzi's part,
because other philosophers had already suggested that reality is not
straightforwardly discerned; on the contrary, one's partial
perspective on reality necessarily informs one's perception of
it. This was, essentially, the argument in "Discourse on the
Equality of Things" ("Qiwu lun"
Qi Wu Lun ), an important chapter in *Zhuangzi*
Zhuang Zi  (e.g., Graham 1989: 176-83). For Xunzi,
however, reality is reality, regardless of how we perceive it. Once
again, some scholars (e.g., Hagen 2007: 59-84) question whether
Xunzi is such a strong realist, but a constructivist interpretation is
difficult to reconcile with Xunzi's repeated assertions that
language must conform to reality and the Way, e.g., "Names are
that by which one defines different real objects"
(*Xunzi* 22.3f).


## 8. The Heart-Mind (*xin*)



In many respects, the heart-mind is the keystone of Xunzi's
philosophy, the one piece that links together all the others. The
Chinese word *xin* means "heart", but Xunzi
attributes such strong and varied mental processes to this organ that
one has to construe it as not only the heart but also the mind. (The
mind was not located in the brain in premodern Chinese
philosophy.)



First, the heart-mind is the organ that we use to discover the Way.
Xunzi's discussion of Heaven presents his argument that moral
self-cultivation is a matter of correctly perceiving and then applying
the Way, but does not explain how we perceive the Way in the first
place. Elsewhere, he states explicitly that we come "to know the
Way" by means of our heart-mind (*Xunzi* 21.5d), which
has three cardinal attributes: "emptiness" (*xu*
Xu ) "unity" (*yi* Yi ), and
"tranquility" (*jing* Jing ). Xunzi patently
borrowed these three terms from earlier discourse, particularly
*Zhuangzi* (e.g., Yearley 1980; Goldin 1999: 22-31;
Stalnaker 2003), and uses them to denote three nurturable faculties
that we all possess from birth, but do not employ to the same degree.
(The title of the relevant chapter, "Resolving Blindness",
refers to the self-destructive acts that people undertake because they
fail to employ their heart-minds correctly.) "Emptiness"
refers to the heart-mind's ability to store a seemingly
unlimited amount of information: we do not have to erase one datum in
order to make room for another. "Unity" refers to the
heart-mind's ability to synthesize diverse data into meaningful
paradigms. And "tranquility" refers to the
heart-mind's ability to distinguish fantasy from rational
thinking. Armed with these powers, we can infer the patterns of the
Way by taking in, and then pondering, the data transmitted to the
heart-mind by the senses.



In addition, the heart-mind is the chief among the organs. It is the
only organ that can command the others; indeed, it is the only organ
with any self-consciousness. "The mind is the lord of the body
... It issues commands but does not receive commands"
(*Xunzi* 21.6a). Because the heart-mind can control both itself
and all other organs of the body, it is the font of
"artifice", or the deliberate actions that begin to
transform the morally deficient *xing*: "When the
heart-mind reasons and the other faculties put it into
action--this is called 'artifice'"
(*Xunzi* 22.1b). The heart-mind is capable of overriding every
human impulse, even the instinct of self-preservation, if it conflicts
with the correct "patterns" (*li*
 Li ).[10]
 We have the necessary faculties to recognize immorality when we see
it, and if we permit ourselves to tread an immoral path, we cannot
blame our emotions or desires, but must accept that our heart-mind has
failed to exert the requisite discipline. We know that we could have
done better. Indeed, when we speak of "we", we are
speaking of our heart-mind. For the heart-mind is the crucible where
these teeming moral deliberations take place.



Thus Xunzi ends, like all Confucians, with individual responsibility:
in his case, the heart-mind's obligation to process the
principles of the Way and then command the rest of the body to
conform. Because we are not sages, we are advised to follow the
rituals in order to attain this degree of understanding, but,
fundamentally, the path to morality is open to anyone who sees and
thinks (*Xunzi* 8.11 and 23.5b).



Xunzi's conception of the heart-mind also figures in a
distinctive congruence that he postulates between a kingdom and a
human being. A kingdom possesses an initial set of features--it
may be large or small, rich or poor, hilly or flat--but these are
immaterial to its ultimate success or failure, for any territory,
however small, provides enough of a base for a sage to conquer the
world. Thus it is the management of the state, and not its natural
resources, that determine whether it will become the demesne of a king
or be conquered by its neighbors. This management, furthermore,
comprises two elements: a proper method, namely the rituals of the
sage kings; and a decisive agent, namely the lord, who chooses either
to adopt the rituals or unwisely discard them.



In much the same way, human beings are made up of two parts: their
*xing*, or detestable initial condition, and *wei*,
their conscious conduct. They may reform themselves or they may remain
detestable: this depends entirely on their conduct. The management of
the self, just like the management of the state, comprises two
elements: a proper method, which is, once again, the rituals of the
sage kings; and a decisive agent, which chooses either to adopt the
rituals or unwisely discard them. This agent, the analogue of the lord
of a state, is the heart-mind (Goldin 1999:
 16-17).[11]
 As in the Broadway song, "It's not where you start;
it's where you finish" (Fields *et al*. 1973 [1975:
54]).


## 9. Xunzi's Reception after His Death



 At[12]
 the end of his life, Xunzi was the leading teacher and philosopher in
the Chinese world. Among his former students were some of the most
influential men in politics, including Han Fei Han Fei  (d.
233 BCE), Li Si Li Si  (d. 208 BCE), and Zhang Cang
Zhang Cang  (ca. 250-151 BCE), as well as transmitters of
several leading redactions of canonical texts, including Fuqiu Bo
Fu Qiu Bo  and perhaps Mao Heng Mao Heng  (Goldin
1999: xii).



The early Han Han  dynasty statesman Lu Jia Lu Jia  (ca.
228-ca. 140 BCE) is sometimes said to have been Xunzi's
student as well (e.g., by Tang Yan Tang Yan  [1857-1920]
in Wang Liqi 1986: 222-23), but the two men's dates make
this relationship unlikely. Perhaps Lu Jia was a disciple of Fuqiu Bo,
and thus an intellectual grandson of Xunzi. Regardless, the strongest
evidence of Lu Jia's indebtedness to Xunzi lies on the level of
ideas (Li Dingfang 1980). Like Xunzi, Lu Jia appealed to the classics,
the sages' textual legacy, as the best practical guide to
government and moral self-cultivation (Puett 2002: 253-54; Jin
Chunfeng 2006: 73-74). But Lu's most important
philosophical thesis is that human beings bring about auspicious and
inauspicious omens through their own actions.



Xunzi, we recall, argued strongly against the belief in Heavenly
portents. Lu Jia accepted Xunzi's framework, but with a single,
consequential innovation: people bring about their own fortune or
misfortune by emitting *qi* Qi : 



> 
> 
> Thus when societies fail and the Way is lost, it is not the work of
> Heaven. The lord of the state has done something to cause it. Bad
> government breeds bad *qi*; bad *qi* breeds disasters
> and abnormalities. (Wang Liqi 1986: 155) 
> 
> 
> 



By adding the element of *qi*--a term that Xunzi rarely
used, and certainly did not build into his metaphysics--Lu Jia
retains Xunzi's volitionless and mechanistic Heaven but forges a
novel philosophical justification for the arcane science of omenology,
which Xunzi mercilessly deprecated. Where Xunzi counseled us to ignore
abnormalities, Lu Jia accepts their validity as
"admonitions" (*jie* Jie ). But, once again,
Heaven itself has no effect on our success or failure. If we are faced
with a host of wood-boring caterpillars, to use Lu's vivid
example, the only way to account for them is to acknowledge that our
government is responsible for their generation through its maleficent
conduct (Zhou Guidian 1999: 51-53; Puett 2002: 249-52).
Two coeval philosophers, Jia Yi Jia Yi  (201-169 BCE)
and Dong Zhongshu Dong Zhong Shu  (ca. 198-ca. 107
BCE), agreed that human beings are responsible for their own fortune
or misfortune, and thus have no cause to blame Heaven, although Jia Yi
did not refer to *qi* in prosecuting his theory, whereas Dong
Zhongshu did (Goldin 2007).



Dong Zhongshu is reported to have written a paean to Xunzi (now lost),
and writers of late antiquity, such as Wang Chong Wang Chong 
(27-ca. 100 CE) and Ban Gu Ban Gu  (32-92 CE),
still took him seriously as a philosopher. But thereafter,
Xunzi's star began to set. In later centuries, the two
tirelessly repeated cliches about Xunzi were that he propagated
the anti-Mencian doctrine that human nature is evil, and that, by
serving as Li Si's and Han Fei's teacher, he furthered the
cause of Legalism (*fajia* Fa Jia ) and thus subverted
high-minded principles. Ji Kang Ji Kang  (223-262), for
example, obliquely identified Xunzi as the chief architect of
everything that Ji and his group disdained: artificial ritualism,
counterfeit erudition, and an oppressive network of laws that serve
only to interfere with the innocuous enjoyment of life (Goldin 2007:
140-42).



By the Tang Tang  dynasty, even literati who admired
Xunzi--such as Han Yu Han Yu  (768-824)--were
careful to add that his works contain grave mistakes (Kong Fan 1997:
281; Liu Youming 2006: 48-50). In the Song Song , there were
still some voices that praised him, but the opinion with the greatest
long-term consequences was that of Zhu Xi Zhu Xi 
(1130-1200), who declared that Xunzi's philosophy
resembled those of non-Confucians such as Shen Buhai
Shen Bu Hai  (fl. 354-340 BCE) and Shang Yang
Shang Yang  (d. 338 BCE), and that he was indirectly responsible
for the notorious disasters of the Qin dynasty (Kong Fan 1997:
291-95). For the rest of imperial history, Xunzi was rejected by
the cultural
 mainstream;[13]
 into the twentieth century, he was criticized by intellectuals such
as Kang Youwei Kang You Wei  (1858-1927), Tan Sitong
Tan Si Tong  (1865-1898), and Liang Qichao
Liang Qi Chao  (1873-1929) as the progenitor of the
Confucian scriptural legacy, which, in their view, had derailed the
original Confucian mission and plunged China into a cycle of
authoritarianism and corruption that lasted more than two thousand
years.



Today the tide has reversed almost completely. Xunzi is one of the
most popular philosophers throughout East Asia, and has been the
subject of a large number of books published over the past two
decades. From a twenty-first-century perspective, this revival of
interest in Xunzi is not hard to explain: his body of work has always
been one of the best preserved, and with the commonplace scholastic
objections to his philosophy having lost most of their cogency, it is
only to be expected that philosophical readers should be attracted to
his creative but rigorous arguments. In this sense one could say that
Xunzi has finally been restored, more than two millennia after his
death, to his erstwhile position as *zui wei lao shi*.