3.  Man is both Good-natured and Bad-natured according to Yan Hiung[FN#163] (Yo-yu).

According to Yang Hiung and his followers, good is no less real than evil, and evil is no more unreal than good.  Therefore man must be double-natured-that is, partly good and partly bad.  This is the reason why the history of man is full of fiendish crimes, and, at the same time, it abounds with godly deeds.  This is the reason why mankind comprises, on the one hand, a Socrates, a Confucius, a Jesus, and, on the other, a Nero and a Kieh.  This is the reason why we find to-day a honest fellow in him whom we find a betrayer to-morrow.

[FN#163] Yan Hiung (died A.D. 18) is the reputed author of Tai Huen (Tai-gen) and Fah Yen (Ho-gen).  His opinion in reference to human nature is found in Fah Yen.

This view of man’s nature might explain our present moral state, yet it calls forth many questions bard to answer.  If this assertion be true, is it not a useless task to educate man with the purpose of making him better and nobler?  How could one extirpate man’s bad nature implanted within him at his origin?  If man be double-natured, how did he come to set good over evil?  How did he come to consider that he ought to be good and ought not to be bad?  How could you establish the authority of morality?

4.  Man is neither Good-natured nor Bad-natured according to Su Shih (So-shoku).[FN#164]

The difficulty may be avoided by a theory given by Su Shih and other scholars influenced by Buddhism, which maintains that man is neither good-natured nor bad-natured.  According to this opinion man is not moral nor immoral by nature, but unmoral.  He is morally a blank.  He is at a crossroad, so to speak, of morality when he is first born.  As he if; blank, he can be dyed black or red.  As he is at the cross-road, he can turn to the right or to the left.  He is like fresh water, which has no flavour, and can be made sweet or bitter by circumstances.  If we are not mistaken, this theory, too, has to encounter insurmountable difficulties.  How could it be possible to make the unmoral being moral or immoral?  We might as well try to get honey out of sand as to get good or evil out of the blank nature.  There can be no fruit of good or evil where there is no seed of good or bad nature.  Thus we find no satisfactory solution of the problem at issue in these four theories proposed by the Chinese scholars—­the first theory being incompetent to explain the problem of human depravity; the second breaking down at the origin of morality; the third failing to explain the possibility of moral culture; the fourth being logically self-contradictory.

[FN#164] Su Shih (1042-1101), a great man of letters, practiser of Zen, noted for his poetical works.

5.  There is no Mortal who is Purely Moral.