 In effect, both Xunzi and Mencius argued that human beings all have the capacity to become good, even though some people develop this capacity and others do not (Graham 1989: 250; Shun 1997: 222–31). The main differences, only recently appreciated, are that they were not operating with the same implicit definitions of xing, and Xunzi’s recommendations for moral self-cultivation—that is, how to overcome one’s inherently detestable nature—were more complex than Mencius’s, as we shall see. Because of Mencius’s subsequent prestige, it was commonly supposed that Xunzi’s definition of xing was heterodox, if not deliberately subversive. But a collection of Confucian manuscripts recently excavated from a tomb near the modern town of Guodian 郭店 and dated to ca. 300 BCE suggests that it may have been Mencius’s usage of xing, not Xunzi’s, which was considered eccentric in ancient  times.[4]  The Guodian text called The Xing Emerges from the Endowment (Xing zi ming chu 性自命出) defines xing in a manner very similar to Xunzi: the set of inborn characteristics shared by all members of a species (Goldin 2005: 38).