Before anything else, I will try to simplify (and I may make mistakes) the difference between Mencius and Xunzi. According to the videos and readings exposed here, the explicit is simple: Mencius sees human nature as intrinsically good, while Xunzi sees it as intrinsically bad. Both agree on the crucial point that, be it good or bad, there is an urgent need to cultivate virtue in human nature. If it is good, as in the case of Mencius, it needs to be cultivated so as not to lose it and, dare I say, to improve it. Similarly in the case of Xunzi, being bad, it must be cultivated for the obvious reason of making it good, otherwise it would not be possible to live a harmonious life in a harmonious society, and men's impulse to cultivate it comes from its own nature intrinsically bad, since from Xunzi's point of view, men seek what they do not have. Now, to simplify, I dare to say that Mencius sees human nature as good, but with a tendency to become bad, while Xunzi sees it as evil, but with a tendency to transform into good (and this is why man he must strive to maintain a child's heart, for Mencius, or to put it in other words, not to let his good nature be lost, while for Xunzi, the simple fact that a man seeks only what he does not already seek - and since his nature is evil – it is what drives him to seek benevolence). In both cases, once again, virtue is achieved through education, learning, self-cultivation and the reiteration of rituals. In his article, Keightley argues that China possesses epistemological optimism, and in his long argument that he should have focused on the Neolithic and Bronze Age, he ended up using many later texts to justify his views, so but. ..... half of the card ......us activity (in this case, the simple conscious activity of seeking what one does not possess, in the same way those who are poor will seek wealth). Despite the fact that my essay is perhaps too influenced by my interpretation and opinion, if my reading of Mencius and Xunzi is correct, they are not that different. Their small epistemological difference regarding the intrinsic goodness or badness of human nature is soon corrected by the symmetrically opposite tendency of good nature to lose itself and bad nature to seek its opposite. It is also corrected by the convergence point of Mencius and Xunzi: the need for learning and self-cultivation. Be that as it may, I argue that both are epistemologically optimistic, even if the appearance of their writings seems to make their thinking more distinct than it actually is..