Original source spelling · punctuation belongs to the digital witness · pronunciation tools follow your language focus.
人之性惡，其善者偽也
Human nature is bad; its goodness is deliberate human achievement.
zimai · AI-assisted editorial notes · Editorial pilot · not independently reviewed · CC BY-SA 4.0A route through this passage
9 Han characters · 9 distinct forms · 2 units separated by the witness’s punctuation
- Establish the frame. Read the surrounding chapter. Who speaks, what is being discussed, and which earlier words supply the context?
- Test one unit.
人之性惡，
Mark a possible predicate and its participants. Record what you have supplied rather than found explicitly in the text. - Reconstruct the argument. Connect the units in your own words. Where does a description, question, contrast, or consequence depend on your interpretation?
Investigate 4 written forms in this passage
Matched by spelling. These are candidate reading procedures, not assigned grammatical analyses.
Computed from this exact witness · 1 contextual editorial excerpt also available. The guide is a set of reading prompts, not a translation. Sources & methods
Make this passage yours.
Use the reading guide above, build your interpretation, then test what you can recover. Your notes and schedule stay on this device.
1 · Explain it in your own words
2 · Recover the wording
Select a source unit, then hide the passage and reconstruct it. This checks textual recall, not understanding.
3 · Explain, then revisit
Why is translating 偽 as dishonesty misleading here?
Compare the editorial answer
The clause credits cultivated activity with goodness; it is distinguishing that activity from 性.
zimai editorial draft · not independently reviewed. Applies to 人之性惡，其善者偽也
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Read this beside…
Each connection states its purpose. Comparisons are editorial learning aids; shared wording alone does not prove influence.
Argument contrastWhat counts as human nature?These passages state sharply different judgments about 性. Compare the role assigned to deliberate cultivation and the water analogy before deciding whether the same boundaries of nature are being assumed. This is a comparison of claims, not a complete resolution of their disagreement.
Shared wording
Computed exact phrases in the pinned witnesses. These links do not assign a sense or assert borrowing.
荀子 · 性惡篇第二十三其善者偽歸於治。用此觀之，然則人之性惡明矣，其善者偽也。
荀子 · 性惡篇第二十三其善者偽為小人。用此觀之，然則人之性惡明矣，其善者偽也。
荀子 · 性惡篇第二十三其善者偽用此觀之，然則人之性惡明矣，其善者偽也。
Follow a connection
Shared teaching construction · an editorial learning connection, not evidence of common authorship or origin.
論語 · Track whose, which, and whose perspective父在，觀其志；父沒，觀其行論語 · Connect a modifier to a head禮之用，和為貴論語 · Track whose, which, and whose perspective觀其所由，察其所安論語 · Track whose, which, and whose perspective慎言其餘，則寡尤Edition, source, and reuse
- Work
- 荀子 · Xunzi
- Attribution
- Traditionally associated with Xun Kuang; the received collection contains multiple textual layers.
- Digital witness
- Kanseki Repository · KR3a0002 · base edition tls
- Contributors
- Kanseki Repository (Kanripo) contributors; upstream base-edition labels retained in each original file.
- Source position
- KR3a0002_023.txt, lines 14–15. XUN 23.01:01; 23:1a, Knoblock 3:150, tr. CH
- Version
e18a27621ef434940a368defd29e00eee205dfd2- Reuse
- CC BY-SA 4.0. Text extraction and teaching additions share this licence.
- Text policy
- Source spelling and punctuation retained. Encoding headers, page markers, paragraph markers, whitespace, and leading section numbers are removed from the reading view. No silent script conversion or textual correction.
- Teaching
- zimai · AI-assisted editorial notes. English renderings are excerpt-level reading aids, not a full published translation. Editorial pilot · not independently reviewed.
Source-file SHA-256: bcd4df887e25970e3d73b080850805203c9b48d48611e949f8849ad461d2e895. A source comment that cites a translator is an upstream reference, not the attribution of a translation imported here.