 For many of the Confucians who wrote in the Song-Ming period, the most important test of a philosophical system was whether it could provide or justify a good account of self-cultivation. It was widely accepted that most people were lacking in virtue. Debates about Pattern, qi, heartmind, and the foundations of ethics were often treated as being important insofar as they had implications for how we ought to improve ourselves (Ivanhoe 2016: 22–23).