Mencius teaches that at the heart of every human being lies an originally good nature. This goodness is not something imposed from outside, but something innate, a set of moral potentials embedded in the very structure of human life. He describes these as “sprouts” or “beginnings,” suggesting that goodness is present from the start, yet requires cultivation to fully manifest. Human beings, on this view, are not blank slates nor fundamentally corrupt; they are beings whose deepest tendencies incline toward what is right and humane.

These inborn tendencies appear as four distinct yet interrelated moral sentiments. There is compassion, which is the seed of benevolence; a sense of shame and dislike of wrongdoing, which underlies righteousness; respect and deference, which give rise to ritual propriety; and a sense of right and wrong, which matures into wisdom. Each of these is like a small spring bubbling up from within, easily obscured but never entirely extinguished. When nurtured through education, reflection, and appropriate social conditions, they grow into fully formed virtues.

Mencius illustrates this inner moral orientation through the spontaneous reaction one has on seeing a child about to fall into a well: a sudden feeling of alarm and compassion arises before any calculation of benefit or reputation. Such an example shows that moral feeling is natural rather than acquired, an immediate expression of the heart’s original direction. Wrongdoing, therefore, does not testify to an evil essence but to the distortion, neglect, or suffocation of these native moral sprouts. For one who contemplates this teaching, moral cultivation becomes less a matter of forcing the self into an alien mold and more a matter of recovering, protecting, and extending what is already authentically present within.