Ho Yen's theory that the sage has no affections, as well as Wang Pi's argument that the sage has affections but is not affected by them, are famous topics in the Wei-Chin hsuan-hsueh. They have an important bearing on how we should understand hsuan-hsueh's theory of human nature. This essay begins with Wang Pi's position that the sage's feelings respond to all things but do not depend on them. By looking at his commentary for Lun-yu shi-yi (Explication of the Analects), where he writes “naturalize the feelings,” we can investigate anew the traditional understanding of Wang Pi's theory of human nature, and attempt to present a new interpretation. The author believes that Wang Pi's theory of human nature was based on Confucius' assertion that “By nature people are closely similar, but through learning they become dissimilar.” This metaphor of proximity here was a reasonable explanation of how, a priori, everybody received more or less the same original nature but a posteriori moved further apart according to the disposition of what they experienced and accomplished. According to Wang Pi's position of “naturalizing the feelings,” Confucius implied three things by the statement in the Analects. First, the basics of human nature before experience are mutually close rather than mutually distant. Second, with experience comes the difference between all feelings which are close to this nature and those which depart from nature. Finally, there are relations of proximity between the two. In conclusion, the author aims to compare Wang Pi's hsuan-hsueh (Neo-Taoism), and its position of “naturalizing the feelings,” with Sung-Ming Neo-Confucian version of this position. In this way it becomes clear how Neo-Confucianists took over and assimilated the conceptual thought of Neo-Taoism, and we can see the theoretic heritage of Neo-Taoism and Neo-Confucianism, while envisioning the differences in the core of their thinking.