Chinese · -372–-289
Meng Ke was born in Zou, near Confucius's home state, and studied with a pupil of Confucius's grandson. He spent decades travelling between the courts of Qi, Liang and Teng during the Warring States period, telling kings to their faces that a ruler who treats his people as mud and grass will be treated as an enemy, and that a tyrant may be killed without the killing counting as regicide. He held office briefly in Qi and resigned. He argued that human nature is good, using the example of anyone who sees a child about to fall into a well and feels alarm before calculating any advantage, and located the seeds of virtue in four innate feelings. Zhu Xi placed his book among the Four Books in the twelfth century, which made it required reading for every examination candidate for the next seven hundred years.