Once self-aggrandizing desires and emotions are brought under control, these natural parts provide the basis for taking great satisfaction and contentment in virtue

Each thinker emphasizes one of these opposing directions, but it is a credit to the subtlety and power of their views that each also takes into account the direction that the other emphasizes. Mencius acknowledges that moral development is hindered when a person pays more attention to the “small” parts of the self that include desires for sensual and material satisfaction and fails to use the heart-mind to reflect on the great parts that have normative priority. In the chapter on rituals, Xunzi