中国古代的思想家在建构他们的政治、经济、伦理、教育等学说时,自觉或不自觉地都有一个关于人性的假设,以此作为提出这些学说的理论依据之一。孟子从人性本善出发,建构了他的仁政学说,而荀子基于人性本恶的假设,提出了法治的主张。人性问题已成为古代思想家不可回避的重大理论问题。在明代著名心学家王阳明以前,我国古代思想家一般都是从人的自然属性和社会属性两个层次上论述人性的。如告子、荀子强调人 Ancient Chinese thinkers, in constructing their theories on politics, economics, ethics and education, both consciously and unconsciously have a hypothesis about human nature as one of the theoretical bases for putting forward these theories. Starting from the goodness of human nature, Mencius constructed his doctrine of benevolent government, and Xunzi proposed the rule of law based on the assumption that human nature is evil. The issue of human nature has become a major theoretical issue that ancient thinkers have unavoidable. Before the famous Ming Dynasty psychologist Wang Yangming, ancient Chinese thinkers generally discussed human nature from the two aspects of human’s natural and social attributes. Such as the fancier, Xunzi stressed people