Mencius

Mencius (most accepted dates: 372 – 289 BC; other possible dates: 385 – 303/302 BC) was a Chinese philosopher who is the most famous Confucian after Confucius himself.
== Tossup Questions ==
# This man related how a king ordered that a sheep be sacrificed in place of an ox for the consecration of a bell. This man's mother, a prominent role model, once responded to his truancy by cutting a cloth she had been weaving. This man used the example of compassion, shame, reverence, and moral value felt toward a child falling down a well to illustrate the Four Beginnings. The last of the Four Books is a collection of conversations with this man, an extreme optimist with respect to human nature, who studied under Zi Si. This scholar of the fourth century BCE was often called the "Second Sage." For 10 points, name this second greatest Confucian after Confucius himself.
# This thinker directly attacked a prior philosopher for claiming that "mankind is surely not to be helped by a single hair," and he believed that human faculties resided in a combined organ called the "heart-and-mind." He wrote that a main task of philosophy is to analyze "giveaway actions," his term for spontaneous, minor incidents in which the correct moral choice is made. He said that such actions occurs because humans are naturally possessed of "sprouts" of morality, leading to his four virtues of benevolence, righteousness, propriety, and wisdom. This namesake of the fourth sishu was a student of either Zisi or the disciples of Zisi, providing a connection to the family of his tradition's founder. For 10 points, identify this fourth century BCE writer who achieved great popularity during the Tang Dynasty's Neoconfucian revival for his human nature-based interpretation of Confucius.
# One of this thinker's works claims that "the evil of men is that they like to be teachers of others" and that the people come before the "spirits of the land and grain," which comes before the sovereign. That work includes the story of soldiers who have fled fifty steps laughing at those who have fled one hundred steps. This philosopher argued that the populace has the right to topple a government that does not live up to its de, and used the example of a child falling down a well to demonstrate his idea of the Four Beginnings. His view that "human nature is good" was opposed by Xun Zi. For 10 points, name this Chinese philosopher of the Warring States period who defended the teachings of Confucius.