June 28, 2026

The feeling of commiseration is the beginning of humanity.

Mencius wrote this in the fourth century BCE, during a period of constant warfare among the Chinese states, when rulers were preoccupied with military strategy and political survival. He was arguing directly against the idea that morality is imposed from outside us — that compassion is not a rule we follow but a capacity we are born with. He used the image of a child about to fall into a well: anyone who sees it feels alarm and distress, not because of social obligation, but because that response is already inside them. That instinct, he said, is where love for others actually starts.