A Study on the Beauty of Mencius’s Character

This study aims to investigate Mencius’s perception of personal beauty and the methods used to elevate it. Mencius clearly pointed out that the human moral spirit, too, can bring pleasure to the human soul through ‘reason’ and ‘justice.’ The human moral spirit also possesses an aesthetic quality. He recognized beauty as arising from the inherent demands of the good and as a conscious effort to realize the good within the individual. He is conscious of the fact that personal beauty is the unity of the ethics and morals of society and the demands of the emotions and will inherent in the individual. Personal beauty manifests from the noble morality of humans and is also revealed through concrete forms. He acknowledged that personal beauty is an existence perceptible in daily life, and that the beauty of the human form lies in its expression of the inherent noble moral spirit of humanity.