The Feeling Of Commiseration Is The

From Mengzi 2A:6, the locus classicus of the "Four Beginnings" (sì duān) doctrine. Mencius asks the reader to imagine seeing a child about to fall into a well: the immediate alarm one feels is not calculated kindness but an instinctive moral response, and this proves that compassion is innate. He identified four such moral sprouts — commiseration, shame, deference, and moral discernment — corresponding to the four cardinal Confucian virtues. As a follower of Confucius, Mencius used this argument to ground his conviction that human nature is fundamentally good.