state of Chu. Six years later when Qi took back the lost territory and
restored the Scholars’ Palace, Xunzi returned. Due to his scholarly
achievement, he was chosen three times as the head of the palace and
was revered as ‘‘the most superior teacher.’’ He was appointed as the
magistrate of Lanling County in the Chu state and was residing there
when he passed away.
Xunzi has been widely viewed as the third most authoritative
representative of Confucianism, after Confucius and Mencius (Fung,
1966 ). Nevertheless, he developed his own theoretical system by
revising and enriching Confucianism and by incorporating some
essential elements of various schools of thought of pre-Qin times,
especially those of Daoism and Legalism. He is therefore labeled
by some as an ‘‘impure’’ Confucian or ‘‘realistic’’ Confucian (Fung,
1966 ). Guo Mo-ruo ( 1956 ), a well-known modern scholar in China,
asserted that ‘‘Xunzi is the last master among those in the pre-Qin
times, who epitomizes not only the essence of Confucianism but also
that of his contemporary hundred schools of thoughts.’’ Studies of
Xunzi in the West have also been gaining momentum with the
publication ofXunzi: a translation and study of the complete works
by Knoblock in 1998, who prefaced volume III by commenting that
‘‘The domain of knowledge traversed by his thought exceeds that of
any other ancient Chinese thinker and bears comparison only with
Aristotle in the West.’’
Xunzi lived in an era when slavery was coming to an end and
feudalism was in its initial stage. During the Spring and Autumn
Period and the Warring States Period, one of the main topics of debate
was social order. What is the rationality of the existing social order
(i.e. on what grounds could people be required to obey this order) and
how could a rational order be reconstructed when the society was
faced with the decomposition of the imperial system and the collapse
of rituals and music? All these were central topics of concern for the
rulers and the elite scholars who were part of the ruling class.
So far as these problems were concerned, different schools of
thought fell roughly in two groups. One group believed that people
have an inherent inclination to esteem order and comply with rules.
It is this instinctive inclination that is the ‘‘goodness’’ of human nature
by which excessive desires can be controlled and the rights of others
observed. As is known, Mencius represented this group, which
justified the rationality of the Confucian social order and defended
52 Yan-qin Peng, Chao-chuan Chen, and Xin-hui Yang