On Xunzi's Inclination for Asceticism

In the Chinese history, asceticism was not put forward by Mencius who advocated the principle of having few desires, but instead, by Xunzi who proposed the principle of satisfying the desire, because an inclination for asceticism was embedded in his theory. In his eyes, human nature is evil and good can only be originated from outside man. His inclination for inhibiting desire so as to adhere to virtue is logically incorporated in the contradiction between the evil human nature and essence of good. The Confucian development after pre-Qin aroused a keen tendency to the contradiction between good and evil in the Xunzi's doctrine, and eventually transformed to asceticism.