 Yet having postulated the impossibility of learning from past models, Shang Yang and Han Fei propose an alternative lesson that can be learnt: that changing circumstances may require not a piecemeal but a comprehensive readjustment of the sociopolitical system. To demonstrate the magnitude of change in the past, both thinkers turn to remotest antiquity, and trace how the state was formed. For instance, Shang Yang depicts social evolution from primeval promiscuous life to an incipient stratified society and then to a fully mature state with laws, regulations, officials, and the power of coercion (Shang jun shu 7: 51–53; Book of Lord Shang 7.1). At the earlier stages of human history, the people could be constrained by moral suasion; yet this was simply because that was the age of relative abundance: “Formerly… the people cut trees and slaughtered animals [for food]; the people were few, whereas trees and animals plenty. … Men plowed to obtain food, women wove to obtain clothing; [the ruler] used neither punishments nor regulations, but there was order” (Shang jun shu 18: 107; Book of Lord Shang 18.1). Han Fei echoes Shang Yang: in the remote past “the people were few whereas goods were plenty; hence people did not compete” (Han Feizi 49: 443). Now, this age of primeval morality has gone forever. Both thinkers emphasize the devastating impact of demographic growth on human mores. “Nowadays, five children are not considered too many, and each child also has five children; the grandfather is still alive, and he already has twenty-five grandchildren. Therefore, the people are plenty whereas commodities and goods are few; people work laboriously, but provisions are scanty; hence the people compete” (Han Feizi 49: 443). Under these new circumstances, moral norms are no longer relevant; contention is the rule, and it can be quelled only through coercion. 