This paper, focusing on Huang Zongxi's Mingyi daifang lu (Waiting for the Dawn), examines the transformation of concepts of public interest and personal ends during the transitional period in Ming-Qing China. Huang's ideas were different from that prevailing in the previous ages and from that of the modern West. Huang divided individual existence in a human society into three categories, namely, attainment of the public interest, realization of private ends, and pursuit of selfish desire. He further elaborated on the formative basis of their patterns of existence and their interactive relationships. Selfish desire, the most important element constituting Rousseau's perception of society, Huang relegated to the degenerate; it existed simply because the concepts of public interests and private ends ceased to exist in society. The ideal world, based on Huang's understanding, was not built on a republic, a desirable form of government to be achieved by all citizens, but on a noble character which was supposed to be an attribute of the ruler and the ruled.