Confucian Theory of Popular Sentiment and the Modern Concept of “the People”

On the metaphysical foundation of the “Way of Heaven” or the “Mandate of Heaven,” Confucianism constructed a theoretical system rich in content including human nature theory, the source of political power (the way of governance), the method of governance (the art of governance), and the relationship between ruler and minister (the people), with “popular sentiment” (民心) serving as a pivotal point. Entering the modern era, influenced by the Confucian theory of popular sentiment, the term “the people” (人民) emerged in revolutionary discourse. As a brand-new modern political concept, “the people” inherited the core content of traditional Confucian theory of popular sentiment, enabling this concept to escape vacuity and, from its formative stage, occupy a central position in the magnificent intellectual history of modern and contemporary China with its rich theoretical connotations, becoming one of the most attractive terms guiding generation after generation of Chinese people toward their ideals.

以“天道”或“天命”观为形而上学基础，儒家构建了内含人性论、政治权力来源（政道）、为政方式（治道）、君臣（民）关系等丰富内容的理论体系，而“民心”是其中一个关节点。进入现代，受儒家民心论的影响，在革命话语中出现了“人民”一词。作为一个崭新的现代政治概念，“人民”继承了传统儒家民心论的核心内容，使得这一概念摆脱了空洞无物，从其产生阶段就以丰富的理论内涵在波澜壮阔的近现代中国思想史上占据了中心位置，成为引领一代又一代中国人实现心中理想的极具吸引力的词汇之一。

The Mandate of Heaven and Popular Sentiment

天命与民心

At the time of the transition from the Shang to the Zhou dynasty, the tyrant Zhou of Shang lost the people’s support and thereby lost the realm through his cruelty, while King Wen of Zhou and King Wu of Zhou won the people’s support and thereby won the realm through benevolent governance. The Zhou people transformed the Shang belief in the “constancy of the Mandate of Heaven” into the “inconstancy of the Mandate of Heaven”; the Mandate of Heaven could shift from one dynasty to a new one, and the establishment of a new dynasty thus became a “revolution in accord with Heaven.” This concept even influenced folk discourse; the common saying “he who wins the people’s support wins the realm” originates from this. The term “popular sentiment” first appeared in the *Book of Documents*: the “Charge to Cai Zhong” in the *Book of Documents* states: “Popular sentiment is not constant; it only cherishes kindness.” Popular sentiment is not eternally unchanging, because the people only feel gratitude toward those who bestow kindness upon them. If one bestows kindness on the people, one wins popular sentiment; once kindness is not bestowed or is reduced, popular sentiment changes. The deep background of the concept of “popular sentiment” in the *Book of Documents* is the shift, during the transition from Shang to Zhou, from anchoring political power in the “Mandate of Heaven” toward placing greater emphasis on the “virtue” of the ruler, hence the saying “Heaven has no partial affections; it only assists the virtuous.” When Confucius founded Confucianism, he naturally inherited the concept of “popular sentiment” from the *Book of Documents*. In the *Analects*, “Yan Yuan,” Zigong discussed strategies of governance with Confucius; regarding which of “sufficient food,” “sufficient arms,” and “the people’s trust” was most important, Confucius considered “the people’s trust” the most important. “The people’s trust” here refers, on one hand, to the people’s confidence and trust in the ruler, thus also being one connotation of “popular sentiment”; on the other hand, it refers to the ruler’s keeping of promises made to the people. In Confucius’s view, keeping promises was more important than a full treasury and strong military, because losing the people’s trust would inevitably lead to the tragic outcome of completely losing popular sentiment.

商周鼎革之际，商纣残暴失民心从而失天下，周文王、周武王以仁政得民心从而得天下。周人把商人信奉的“天命恒常”转变为“天命无常”，天命会从一个朝代转移到新朝代，新朝代的建立就成了“顺天革命”。这一观念甚至影响了民间话语，俗语所说的“得民心者得天下”，就是根源于此。“民心”一词最早出现于《尚书》，《尚书·蔡仲之命》曰：“民心无常，惟惠之怀。”民心不是恒常不变的，因为民众只会感念给他们恩惠的人，施惠于民，则得民心，一旦不施惠或恩惠减少，民心就会发生变化。《尚书》中的“民心”观念的深层背景是商周更迭之际从将政权维系于“天命”向更加注重为政者之“德”的转变，所以有“皇天无亲，惟德是辅”之说。孔子创立儒学，自然继承了《尚书》中的“民心”观念。在《论语·颜渊》中，子贡与孔子讨论为政方略，关于“足食”“足兵”“民信”三者哪个最重要，孔子认为“民信”最重要。这里的“民信”，一方面指民众对为政者的信心和信任，因此也是“民心”的内涵之一，另一方面指为政者信守对民众作出的承诺。在孔子看来，信守承诺比国库丰足、兵强马壮更重要，因为若失信于民，必然导致民心尽失的惨痛结局。

Confucius’s proposition that “the people cannot stand without trust” balanced the positions of both the ruler and the people, but a clear shift occurred by the time of Mencius. This shift was expressed through the relationship between the two categories of “the Mandate of Heaven” and “popular sentiment.” Mencius pointed out that the “Mandate of Heaven” must be manifested through “popular sentiment.” In discussing the source of political power with his disciple Wan Zhang, Mencius advocated that “Heaven gives and the people receive,” meaning that whether a ruler can obtain political power does not depend on private transfer between those in power, but on the command of Heaven and the acceptance or rejection by the people. So-called “the people’s acceptance” is a reflection of “popular sentiment”; who should govern the realm should not be a matter decided privately by those in power, but should be determined by the people. In this way, the “Mandate of Heaven” retains only the significance of a metaphysical premise and foundation, while the source of political power is almost entirely transferred to the people, and “popular sentiment” becomes the decisive factor in gaining or losing the realm.

孔子“民无信不立”的主张兼顾了为政者与民众双方的立场，到了孟子那里却发生了明显转变。这种转变是由“天命”和“民心”两个范畴之间的关系来表达的。孟子指出，“天命”必须借助“民心”才能呈现。在与弟子万章讨论政权来源问题时，孟子主张“天与民受”，即统治者能否获得政权，不在于在位者的私相授受，而在于天之所命与民之接受与否。所谓“民受”，即“民心”的反映，由谁来治天下，不应该是在位者私自决定的事，而是要由民众来决定。如此一来，“天命”只保留有形而上学的前提和基础的意义，政治权力的来源差不多被完全转移到民众那里，“民心”成为天下得失的决定性因素。

Starting from this, Mencius developed the concept of “popular sentiment,” forming a relatively systematic Confucian theory of popular sentiment. The *Mencius*, “Li Lou II,” states: “Jie and Zhou lost the realm because they lost their people. Losing their people means losing their hearts. There is a way to win the realm: win the people, and you win the realm. There is a way to win the people: win their hearts, and you win the people. There is a way to win their hearts: gather for them what they desire, and do not impose on them what they detest.” Mencius entirely attributed the gain or loss of the realm to the direction of popular sentiment, and the reason for the issue of the direction of popular sentiment lay crucially in the benevolence or lack thereof of those in power. At the same time, Mencius believed that “all people have a heart that cannot bear to see the suffering of others,” meaning that everyone possesses the four beginnings of the heart, from which he further derived the theory of the goodness of human nature, that “benevolence, righteousness, propriety, and wisdom are rooted in the heart.” The reason those in power are unbenevolent and lose popular sentiment is that they have let go of the goodness of their original heart and nature, do not strive to practice benevolent governance, and fail to achieve “gathering for them what they desire and not imposing on them what they detest,” that is, they fail to “protect the people.” Mencius advocated that “protecting the people leads to kingship”; failing to “protect the people” naturally makes it difficult to “rule the realm as king,” and “protecting the people” is precisely the strategy for “winning popular sentiment.” From the importance of “popular sentiment,” Mencius further derived the important conclusion that “the people are the most valuable, the state spirits are secondary, and the ruler is the least important,” thereby in turn providing a theoretical basis for the revolutions of Tang and Wu.

由此出发，孟子发挥“民心”观念，形成了较为系统的儒家民心论。《孟子·离娄下》指出：“桀、纣之失天下也，失其民也。失其民者，失其心也。得天下有道：得其民，斯得天下矣。得其民有道：得其心，斯得民矣。得其心有道：所欲与之聚之，所恶勿施尔也。”天下的得失，其原因被孟子完全归之于民心向背，而之所以有民心向背的问题，关键是在位者的仁与不仁。同时，孟子又认为“人皆有不忍人之心”，也就是人人都具备四端之心，由此进一步得出“仁义礼智根于心”的性善论。在位者不仁而失民心的原因是他放失了本心本性之善，不致力于施行仁政，没有做到“所欲与之聚之，所恶勿施尔也”，也就是做不到“保民”。孟子主张“保民而王”，做不到“保民”，自然难以“王天下”，而“保民”恰恰是“得民心”之策。由“民心”的重要性出发，孟子进一步得出“民贵君轻”的重要结论：“民为贵，社稷次之，君为轻”，从而反过来为汤武革命提供了理论基础。

Starting from the shift in the early Zhou from the Mandate of Heaven toward the virtue of the ruler, through Confucius’s emphasis on “the people’s trust,” a relatively systematic and complete “theory of popular sentiment” was formed by the time of Mencius. Mencius’s citation of “Heaven sees as my people see, Heaven hears as my people hear” indicates that the Confucian “theory of popular sentiment” had its origins and carried historical echoes from beginning to end. Thereafter, the “theory of popular sentiment” was passed down by generations of Confucian scholars, becoming one of the core ideas of Confucian political philosophy and exerting a profound influence on later political thought, an influence that continued into the modern and contemporary era.

从周初自天命向为政者之德的转移开始，经孔子对“民信”的强调，到孟子那里形成了较为系统完整的“民心论”。孟子引证“天视自我民视，天听自我民听”意味着儒家“民心论”其来有自，自始至终带有历史的回响。此后，“民心论”被一代代儒者继续传承，成为儒家政治哲学的核心思想之一，对后世的政治思想产生了深刻影响，这种影响一直持续到近现代。

Popular Sentiment and the People

民心与人民

The “theory of popular sentiment” is a typical term of classical political philosophy. Entering the modern and contemporary era, the narrative concerning “popular sentiment” and the legitimacy of political power continued, but the relevant terminology underwent a certain change. Among these, the most core change was the shift from taking “popular sentiment” as the core concept to taking “the people” as the core concept. The fundamental reason for this shift was the great leap from traditional Confucian hierarchical concepts to modern concepts of equality.

“民心论”是古典政治哲学的典型术语，进入近现代，关于“民心”与政权合法性的叙事仍然在延续，但相关术语却发生了某种变化。其中，最核心的一个变化是由以“民心”作为核心概念到以“人民”作为核心概念的转变。这种转变的根本原因是从传统儒家的等级观念向现代平等观念的巨大跃迁。

It should be noted that the term “the people” (人民) had already appeared in ancient texts. The *Mozi* uses “the people” extensively, and the *Huainanzi* also contains such usage; subsequently, traditional texts such as the *Lunheng* also saw multiple appearances of “the people.” However, the use of “the people” in traditional texts differs from the modern concept of “the people.” In the former, “the people” were merely regarded as a group that those in power had to face; such a group had no subjectivity whatsoever, serving only a material role in filling the political space of “the realm,” passively receiving either good or bad treatment from those in power. Unlike the Mohist school and the *Mozi*, the term “the people” appears very rarely in pre-Qin Confucian texts. It appears only once in the *Mencius*, as one of the three treasures of a feudal lord; it appears three times in the *Xunzi*, with usage identical to that in the *Mozi* and later Confucian literature. It is worth mentioning that pre-Qin Confucians distinguished between “person” (人) and “commoner” (民). Apart from referring to humanity in a general sense, as in “the benevolent person loves others,” “person” generally referred to “people of the state” (国人), that is, those who had the ability and qualification to discuss politics and usually resided in the capitals of the Zhou dynasty and its various states, while “commoner” referred to artisans, merchants, servants in the households of scholar-officials, and suburban farmers in the capitals, who were one level lower than “people of the state” in the hierarchical order. Although Confucianism had already begun to tilt toward generally defined “commoners” in areas such as talent recommendation and access to education, from the perspective of the patriarchal clan system, “commoners” remained at the bottom of the hierarchical order.

需要注意的是，“人民”一词在古籍中早已出现，《墨子》中就大量使用“人民”，《淮南子》中也有这样的用法，其后如《论衡》等传统典籍中也多次出现了“人民”。但传统典籍中对“人民”的使用不同于近现代以来的“人民”概念，前者的“人民”只是被当作在位者不得不面对的一个群体，这样的群体没有任何主体性，只是起着填充“天下”这样的政治空间的质料性作用，他们只是被动接受在位者或好或坏的对待。不同于墨家与《墨子》，在先秦儒家典籍中极少出现“人民”一词，《孟子》中只出现一次，即诸侯三宝之一的“人民”；《荀子》中提到三次，用法与《墨子》及后世儒家文献相同。值得一提的是，先秦儒家将“人”与“民”区分开来，除了作为普遍意义上的人类，如“仁者爱人”，“人”一般指“国人”，即具有议政能力和资格、通常居住于周王朝和各诸侯国都城里的那些人，而“民”则是指都城中的工匠、商户、士大夫家中的佣人以及城郊农民，在等级秩序中比“国人”低一级。虽然儒家在人才举荐和接受教育等方面已经开始向一般而言的“民”倾斜，但从宗法制的角度看，“民”仍然是等级秩序中的底层。

Entering the modern era, especially after the formation of the nation-state, “the people” became the subjective force of the historical process, and a revolutionary discourse system centered on “the people” gradually took shape, ultimately being widely accepted by the masses. This process was premised on the transformation from the traditional “family-state” or empire concept to the nation-state, with the establishment of the concept of “popular sovereignty” at its core. In the political structure of the traditional “family-state” or empire, sovereignty lay with a single family or surname. During the Ming-Qing transition, thinkers represented by Huang Zongxi, Wang Fuzhi, and Gu Yanwu proposed that “the realm is the realm of all under Heaven,” breaking the concept that the realm was the realm of a single family or surname, thereby opening the historical序幕 to “popular sovereignty.” However, it was not until the Xinhai Revolution overthrew the Qing dynasty that “popular sovereignty” truly stepped onto the historical stage at the practical level, that is, Sun Yat-sen’s idea of “civil rights.” Subsequently, with the introduction of Marxism into China and its Sinicization, the concept of “popular sovereignty” was further disseminated and ultimately became the mainstream consciousness in modern and contemporary history. After the founding of the People’s Republic of China, this concept was embodied in the form of people’s democracy, that is, the people being the masters of the country.

进入近代，尤其是民族国家形成之后，“人民”成为历史进程的主体性力量，以“人民”为核心的革命话语体系逐渐形成，并最终被大众普遍接受。这个过程以传统“家国”或帝国观念向民族国家的转变为前提，其内核是“主权在民”观念的确立。传统“家国”或帝国的政治结构其主权在于一家一姓，明清之际以黄宗羲、王夫之、顾炎武为代表的思想家提出“天下是天下人之天下”，打破了天下是一家一姓之天下的观念，从此开启了“主权在民”的历史序幕。但直到辛亥革命推翻了清王朝之后，现实层面的“主权在民”才真正登上历史舞台，也即孙中山提出的“民权”思想。之后，随着马克思主义传入中国，在其中国化过程中，“主权在民”的观念进一步被传播并最终成为近现代史上的主流意识。新中国成立后，以人民民主即人民当家作主的形式体现了这一观念。

In contrast to the Confucian thought of protecting the people and people-orientation, which emphasizes “popular sentiment” (minxin), the concept of “the people” (renmin), with “popular sovereignty” as its core content, is a modern political concept. It contains a sense of equality and has substantive differences from the Confucian theory of popular sentiment. However, in the process of the formation and dissemination of the concept of “the people,” the question of the direction of popular sentiment has always been a central issue directly related to and strongly concerned with the concept of “the people.” The direction of popular sentiment is the continuation of the Confucian theory of popular sentiment in modern and contemporary times, while the latter has also been endowed with a new meaning: that is, it has eliminated the lowly status of “the people” (min) within the hierarchical order in the Confucian theory of popular sentiment, emphasizing equal subject-subject relations among people. In addition, the modern concept of “the people” has also dissolved the metaphysical foundation of the “Mandate of Heaven” (tianming) in the traditional Confucian theory of popular sentiment, replacing the traditional view of the Mandate of Heaven with a revolutionary historical narrative and the ruling party’s purpose of “serving the people.” This liberates the Confucian “people” (min) from the traditional triadic cosmic structure of Heaven, Earth, and Man, thereby disenchanting it, and “the people” thus becomes a fully modern political concept.

与强调“民心”的儒家保民、民本思想不同的是，以“主权在民”为核心内容的“人民”概念是一个现代政治概念，其中蕴含着平等意识，与儒家民心论有实质性差异。然而，在“人民”概念形成和传播的过程中，民心向背问题一直是与“人民”概念直接相关并被强烈关注的中心问题。民心向背是儒家民心论在近现代的继续，同时后者又被赋予了崭新的含义，即剔除了儒家民心论中“民”在等级秩序中的低阶地位，强调人与人之间的平等主体关系。此外，现代“人民”概念也消解了传统儒家民心论的“天命”之形而上学基础，以革命史叙事和执政党“为人民服务”的宗旨代替了传统天命观。这就将儒家的“民”从传统天、地、人三极宇宙结构中解脱出来，从而祛魅化，“人民”由此成为一个完全现代的政治概念。

(The author is a professor at the School of Humanities, Xidian University)

（作者系西安电子科技大学人文学院教授）

Online editor: Huihui

网络编辑：慧慧