A Comparative Study Of "The Doctrine Of The Mean" And Mencius' Humanity Thoughts

The issue of humanity is a very important question in the history of Chinese philosophy.Our country has long been debating and arguing about the issue since pre-Qin period.The Spring and Autumn Period and Warring States Period was the Axis Period of civilization of mankind,when the Doctrine of Mean and Mencius'theory about human nature developed,which have a deep social and historical foundation.The germ of the issue of humanity has appeared from Western Zhou Dynasty to The Late spring and Autumn Period,and the literaties has paid attention to the issue of humanity.Confucius put forward the issue of humanity firstly and officially;Guo Dian Bamboo Slips had further discussion on it;Mencius' theory on human nature and that of the Doctrine of Mean inherited and developed the issue of humanity on the basis of the former theories,and performed a consistent cultural context.There are differences and similarities between the Doctrine of Mean and Mencius' theory on human nature by comparing the major propositions,such as"heaven","fate","honesty","conscience" and "feelings".Both of them see "heaven"as the ultimate source of human nature,and follow the natural law,and both think of "honesty" as the major characteristic of human nature,which means ' the truth not to cheat'.However,they both focus differently.The Doctrine of Mean attaches importance to "fate" while Mencius values the rules that "heaven" sets for humans.The Doctrine of Mean follows the theory from the article Spirit Stems from Fate from Guo Dian Bamboo Slips,and is more focused on explaining human nature by feelings.Mencius,however,looking at the source of goodness—conscience.He prefers to explain human nature by conscience.Not only are they different in the way of stating human nature,but also there are many differences in cultural behaviors.The Doctrine of Mean follows two cultivation channels—outside and inside,namely,treasuring one's innate virtues and seeking for knowledge.Yet Mencius centers on conscience,nourishing and expanding it by lessening desires and pursuing ease and has the opinion of going inside to examine oneself.In the aspect of self-cultivation realm,they show consistency.Whether it is the "outside and inside" of The Doctrine of Mean or Mencius's "inward seeking,it is ultimately to achieve the "sincere" sage realm,with the "unity of heaven and man" as the ultimate humanistic concern.Both of the Doctrine of Mean and Mencius' theory on human nature have distinguishing features on themselves,The Doctrine of Mean's theory is more brief,but it has constracting meaning on the issue of human nature and fate,which attributs the essence of human nature to "middle" and "honesty".Mencius' theory of human nature is more perfect and systematic,introducing the concept of the heart,and first explicitly proposing the theory of goodness.The theories are the thoughts of the great minds in pre-Qin period about human nature,and both of them have very important statues in the history of theory of human nature in China.They enrich and perfect the content and the system of Confucian philosophy,and had far-reaching influence on later generations.