Mizi 宓子

Mizi 宓子 "Master Mi", also written 密子 or Lüzi 慮子, and also read Fuzi, was a Confucian treatise during by the Warring States period 戰國 (5th cent.-221 BCE) by Mi Buqi 宓不齊 (521-? BCE), courtesy name Zijian 子賤, from the state of Lu 魯. He was a disciple of Confucius and once occupied the post of counsellor (zai 宰) of the statelet of Shanfu 單父 (modern Shanxian 單縣, Shandong). In this position, he reigned with the help of ritual music and always cared for the welfare of the town of Shanfu. He also appointed competent and wise ministers in the offices of Shanfu.

According to the imperial bibliography Yiwen zhi 藝文志 in the official dynastic history Hanshu 漢書, the Mizi was 16 chapters long. The text was lost at an early point of time.

The Qing-period 清 (1644-1911) scholar Ma Guohan 馬國翰 (1794-1857) collected surviving fragments quoted in the books Hanfeizi 韓非子, Lüshi chunqiu 呂氏春秋, Huainanzi 淮南子, Shuoyuan 說苑 and Kongzi jiayu 孔子家語 and published them in his series Yuhan shanfang yiji shu 玉函山房輯佚書.

The fragments of the Mizi say that human nature was partially good and partially evil. A book similar to the Mizi was the Jingzi 景子, written by a disciple of Mi Buqi.