 Deriving inclusive care from the vitality and unity of nature appeared in the Warring States Period, but in opposition to Confucianism. For the Confucians, this focus on being as vitality needs an inherent order, which came through a reinterpretation of the term li 理. The complexity of the term appears in the range of common translations: principle, patterns, coherence. Li often refers to something we should follow and in this sense it might be taken as principles, but li also refers to actual patterns of differentiation, not just to ideals. Considering that li is contextual and involves human purposes and perspectives, translating the term as “coherence” or “coherent patterns” probably best brings these various aspects together. Stephen C. Angle gives an excellent brief definition of li as “the valuable, intelligible way that things fit together” (Angle 2009:  32).[12]  There are patterns of coherence in world, and these patterns define individual things, constitute nature as a system, and structure human society. Li describes the way that these patterns can be optimally harmonized or made to cohere so as to foster the human good (i.e., to be valuable and intelligible).