 Jinsai did not seek to advance Zhou’s position as much as to expand it into a recognition of the manifold diversity of human natures. A scholar by profession, Jinsai’s own social standing was that of a townsperson, presumably of merchant background. The orthodox Neo-Confucian egalitarian position was at odds with the official hierarchy, but so was Jinsai’s view insofar as it affirmed a far more individualized diversity than the established hierarchy allowed. Though Jinsai’s theory of human nature as innate, individual physical disposition was reformulated by Ogyū Sorai, it did not achieve wide acceptance in early-modern Japan. Despite the extent to which it was at odds with reality, Confucian pronouncements on human nature in the early-modern period tended to repeat the Neo-Confucian line that human nature, as principle (ri), is morally good.