model is man’s greatest treasure and lacking a teacher and the model
his greatest calamity (Xunzi, Book 8: 8.11). Third, self-cultivation
requires the initiative to keenly observe and emulate behavior of
propriety in others, seeking critical feedback and being willing and
ready to inspect and correct imperfect conduct. In summary, self-
cultivation, according to Xunzi, involves primarily education, learning,
and practice to accumulate consciousness and habit about conduct
propriety, and in so doing people become knowledgeable, reasonable,
virtuous, and, in a word, cultured.
The profundity of Xunzi’s theory of human nature, as we see it,
exists not just in his insight into the distinction between ‘‘inborn
nature’’ and ‘‘cultivated nature’’ and in proposing a quite comprehen-
sive and rigorous process of cultivation, but also in the great signifi-
cance of combining inborn and acquired human natures, although
most researchers emphasize their distinctness rather than their inte-
gration. Xunzi argues that without the innate basis there would be no
support for the acquired and the innate nature cannot be perfected
without cultivation. Only the combination of the two can help achieve
sageness and happiness in human life. He foresees that the combi-
nation of heaven and earth induces the growth of all things in the
universe; the joining ofyinandyangleads to varieties of changes in
things; the integration of nature and culture makes the world govern-
able. Without nature, there would be no precondition and basis
for cultivation; without culture, there would be no possibility for
nature to reach perfection gradually. Only the combination of the
two can make it possible for the individual to develop and for society
to be stable, orderly, and prosperous.
Philosophy of human society and governance
Largely on the basis of, and to some extent parallel to, the philos-
ophy of human nature, Xunzi proposed his philosophy of society and
governance, which can best be illustrated by a compact paragraph in
Book 9, ‘‘On the regulations of a king’’ (9.16a). Here Xunzi stated that
water and fire have energy but no life; plants have life but no aware-
ness; animals have awareness but know no ritual and moral principles.
People have all of these. Xunzi asked why are oxen and horses driven
by humans even though they are physically stronger or faster than
humans. The answer is that humans alone possess the ability to form
62 Yan-qin Peng, Chao-chuan Chen, and Xin-hui Yang