Polishing the jade: 'Xing' (human nature) and moral cultivation in the 'Analects'

The absence in the Analects of explicit statements on and detailed discussions of the nature of things including human nature (xing) is obvious enough that readers would need no prompting by Zigong, one of Confucius' disciples, to be made aware of it, given that the word appears in the text only twice, one of these being Zigong's reminder that the Master's view on xing cannot be heard. On the other hand, the notion of xing attracted considerable attention in the Warring States period, as seen in the extant works of Mencius and Xunzi, as well as in newly discovered texts. This apparent gap in intellectual deliberations on xing could have been a gradual evolution; its ideological trajectory could be traced to nascent concepts in the Analects. Starting with the analogy in the Analects of unpolished jade, this paper shows that xing contains both morally desirable and undesirable elements that need to undergo the process of grinding and polishing in order to bring out their inherent beauty. Drawing on the Confucian discourse, particularly in the contexts of self-cultivation, I will retrace impressions of it in the Analects and unveil the sub-texts of Confucius' conception of xing, arguing that native quality and cultural refinement are complementary and that together they complete the moral transformation of human development.