 In some passages, extension is characterized as a matter of simply preserving or not losing what is given to one at birth (4B12, 4B19, 4B28, 6A10, 6A11), and such passages accord with the water metaphor in suggesting that moral development happens in the absence of abnormal interference. In other places, the thinking seems to be more in accord with the sprout metaphor and identifies conditions for moral development that go well beyond noninterference: kings are held responsible for providing for their subjects a constant means of livelihood (1A7) that enables them to support parents and nurture wife and children; kings must also ensure the appropriate moral education about filiality, about the duties that rulers and subjects owe to each other and about respect for the elder. Mencius furthermore recognized natural predispositions other than the four beginnings that could potentially lead human beings astray. He mentions the desires of the senses in this regard (6A15). This is why Mencius places responsibility on everyone to si (reflect on, turn over in one’s mind) (6A14, 6A15) the manifestations of the four beginnings. With such reflection, human beings can recognize that virtue takes precedence over satisfaction of potentially conflicting desires and feelings (e.g., the priority of righteousness over the desire for life if one cannot have both), but lack of reflection will stunt moral development (6A9). If the deprivation of nourishing conditions is severe enough, the sprouts can be killed off (6A8). Thus, while Mencius is often characterized superficially by his saying that human nature is good (6A6), he means (at least when his thinking is guided by the sprout metaphor) that it contains predispositions to feel and act in morally appropriate ways and to make intuitive normative judgments that can with the right nurturing conditions give human beings guidance as to the proper emphasis to be given to the desires of the senses (see Shun, 1997; Van Norden, 2004, 2007).