Xunzi, a third‐century bce thinker, promulgated and defended Confucian ideals, such as ritual, music, and propriety. Xunzi was the first Confucian thinker who suggested that human beings should work with Heaven, that human nature is bad, and that human nature can and needs to be transformed by effort. Xunzi developed concepts, such as Dao (Way‐moral standards), xin (heart‐mind), ming (names), and xue (learning), that shaped Chinese intellectual discourse. He also discussed, in nascent form, concepts that were later developed extensively by Confucian thinkers, such as qing (feeling/emotion) and li (pattern/order).