Mencius 1A7 is the tradition's most careful piece of moral psychology. King Xuan of Qi had seen an ox being led past to be slaughtered so its blood could consecrate a new bell, could not bear the animal's frightened trembling, and ordered a sheep substituted. The people concluded he was being cheap. Mencius tells him the people were wrong and that the feeling was the right one — but presses the obvious question of why a sheep was acceptable, and gets the king to admit he cannot say. The answer Mencius supplies is that he had seen the ox and had not seen the sheep, and that this is exactly the problem with his government: he extends his compassion to an animal in front of him and not to his own people, whom he does not see. The passage is a demonstration of the argument from the four sprouts — the capacity is already there and demonstrably operating — combined with a precise account of why it fails to reach where it should.