| 1. | 人 | 之 | 初 | Men at their birth | |
| Jen2 | chih1 | ch'u1 | |||
| Man | arrive | beginning |
Jen is a picture of the object,—Shakespeare's forked radish. Like all Chinese characters, it is the expression of a root idea, humanity, collectively and individually; and its grammatical functions vary in accordance with its position in a sentence and the exigencies of logic. The context, lines 3 and 4, here calls for a plural.
Chih originally meant to issue forth as grass from the ground; and by extension, to meet, to arrive at. It has come to be used conventionally as a sign of the possessive case, a particle of subtle influence, and a demonstrative pronoun; also, from its shape, = zigzag.
Ch'u is composed of 刀 tao knife as radical, and 衣 i clothes (衤 in combination), and is said to derive its meaning from the application of a knife or scissors to a piece of new cloth.
| 2. | 性 | 本 | 善 | are naturally good. | |
| Hsing4 | pên3 | shan4 | |||
| Nature | root | good |
Hsing is composed of 心 hsin heart as radical (忄 in combination)
and 生 shêng (line 297) as phonetic. It means the moral nature,
disposition, temperament, with which man is endowed at birth.
Heart is used as being the seat of the moral and intellectual faculties.
Pên is composed of 木 mu a tree (line 66) as radical, and a horizontal line to indicate locality. It is much used in the sense of fundamental, original, native, etc. See line 68.
