Mencius – Chapter 8.25 Moral Renewal

Mencius said:

“Even Xi Shi – the most beautiful woman of all – if covered in filth, would make everyone cover their noses and walk away. Yet even a morally flawed person, if he fasts, purifies himself through ritual bathing, and cleanses his heart, may offer sacrifices to the Heaven.”

孟子曰：「西子蒙不潔，則人皆掩鼻而過之。雖有惡人，齊戒沐浴，則可以祀上帝。」

Note

This passage from Mencius: Li Lou II uses vivid contrast to articulate core Confucian ideas about human malleability, ethical rehabilitation, and the nature of sacrificial worship.

External beauty, when tainted by uncleanness, becomes repulsive; inner wickedness, when sincerely purified, can be made fit for the sacred. What matters is not who you once were, but whether you are clean now – highlighting the Confucian belief in moral renewal, personal transformation, and the primacy of sincerity in religious practice.

Beauty cannot overcome moral stain

Xi Shi symbolized ideal beauty in ancient China. Yet if defiled, her allure turns to disgust. Mencius teaches: external advantages – beauty, status, talent – mean nothing without inner purity. This echoes Confucius’s ideal of the “gentleman who harmonizes refinement wen) with substance zhi)” Analects 6.18).

Evil is washable, Humanity is renewable

The “wicked person” here is not irredeemable but morally compromised. Throughzhai jie (ritual fasting) and bathing – a dual process of mental discipline and physical cleansing – he symbolically washes away past faults. As theBook of Rites states: “Fasting means ‘making uniform’ – aligning the disordered self into focused reverence.” For Mencius, anyone who sincerely reforms regains eligibility to approach the sacred.

The essence of sacrifice: Sincerity over Status

Confucianism democratizes religious access. Unlike archaic traditions that restricted rituals to elites or shamans, Confucius taught:

“When sacrificing, act as if the spirits were present” (Analects 3.12).

Mencius radicalizes this: Heaven responds not to lineage or past deeds, but to present sincerity.

Theory of Innate Goodness

Mencius’s famous doctrine – that human nature is inherently good – underpins this view. Wickedness is a temporary obscuration of one’s innate moral sprouts.

Ritual purification is thus an act of recovering one’s original goodness, akin to the Great Learning’s call for daily renewal:

“If you can renew yourself today, renew yourself every day, and again tomorrow.”

Ethical religion vs. Magical ritual

Ancient Chinese religion often treated sacrifice as magical manipulation. Confucians redefined it as ethical self-cultivation. One approaches Heaven not through bloodline or incantation, but through virtue – “matching Heaven with virtue” (Book of Documents).

Spiritual equality

This idea paved the way for Mencius’s bold claim that “everyone can become Yao or Shun” (Gaozi II), because “we act from virtue within, not perform virtue”.

Later, Wang Yangming declared, “Every person on the street can be a sage” – a direct inheritance of this inclusive vision.

Redemption and Social forgiveness

Today, society often permanently labels people by past mistakes (criminal records, scandals). Mencius reminds us: human beings can change. Justice systems should include “ritual baths” – education, therapy, reintegration. And each individual must daily “bathe” the mind through reflection and renewal.

“Every day I examine myself on these three points: in acting on behalf of others, have I always been loyal to their interests? In intercourse with my friends, have I always been true to my word? Have I failed to repeat the precepts that have been handed down to me?”

In essence: Beauty stained is worse than plainness; evil cleansed draws near to Heaven. The divine does not ask who you were – but whether you are pure now.