 The passage demonstrates one characteristic of the text that is pertinent to Mencius’s response to Mohism. In contrast to the Analects, the ruler’s duties to care for his people are more frequently discussed and play a more prominent role in the conception of a ruler’s moral excellence. Mencius is portrayed in this text as very much engaged in getting the kings of Chinese states to stop mistreating their subjects, to stop drafting their subjects into their wars of territorial expansion, and to avoid overtaxing them to finance their wars and lavish projects. At the same time, Mencius’s assertion that the king is able to extend the kind of concern he showed the ox toward his own people is a reply to those who advocate Yangism on the grounds that acting for one’s own sake is natural. Mencius holds that natural compassion is a part of human nature. The task of moral self-cultivation is the task of “extending” what is natural. What is natural, or at least more so, is properly acting toward the aged and the young in one’s family and then extending that to the aged and the young in other families.