Mencius, born Meng Ke in the state of Zou, in what is now Shandong, China, was a Confucian philosopher often called the “Second Sage”, second in esteem only to Confucius himself. He is said to have been a pupil of Confucius’s grandson Zisi, and during the Warring States period he served as an official and scholar at the Jixia Academy in the state of Qi.
He spent much of his life travelling between states and advising their rulers, and those conversations form the basis of the Mencius, later made one of the Confucian classics. A central idea of his work is that human nature is righteous and humane, which set him against his near contemporary Xunzi, who held that human nature is evil.