 In his watershed essay, A Treatise on Humanity (Renshuo), Zhu Xi discourses on the classical Confucian teaching of humanity (ren) in a unified cosmic and human perspective. In concluding, he criticizes alternative accounts of humanity, i.e., Confucius’ spirit of humaneness, on various conceptual and ethical  grounds.[13]  Following the early Han tradition, Zhu opens by associating humaneness with cosmic creativity. In its most basic manifestation, humaneness is characterized as the impulse of “heaven and earth” (the cosmos) to produce things. By extension, this impulse yields the cycle of seasons and the pervasive fecundity of nature. Advocates of this doctrine had found confirmation in the rich, productive Chinese soil and temperate climate, which supported their assumption that nature was generally fertile and afforded the right conditions for human flourishing. Pervasive, the impulse to produce appears in each and every one of the myriad creatures while in human beings it is refined into the virtue of “humaneness”, which, when fully realized, involves one’s caring attitude and dedicated responsibility toward others. Zhu Xi moreover correlates “origination, growth, flourishing and firmness”, the fourfold initial stages of creativity and production in the cosmos and human nature first mentioned in early commentaries on the Book of Change, with humaneness, appropriateness, ritual conduct and wisdom, the four cardinal virtues enunciated by Confucius. Zhu Xi thus portrays the fully cultivated person as at once a complement to heaven and earth, a vital participant in cosmic creativity, and a catalyst for the flourishing and self-realization of others. On this basis, he goes on to formulate the definition of ren (humanity, humaneness) for the subsequent tradition: “the essential character of mind” and “the essential pattern of love”. The virtue of humaneness thus grounds the disposition of mind as commiserative and describes the core of moral self-realization as love for others (other-directed concern), to be appropriately manifested.