In his Chinese book T'ien-chu Shi-i, Ricci for the first time managed to use Confucian stock terms to translate the discourse on human nature and merit in Western Scholasticism, attempting to invoke empathy and echo among Late Ming literati. However, these stock terms told quite a different story in terms of human nature and self-cultivation. From the perspective of culture fundamentalism, it seems with good reason that the Confucian orthodox theses of human nature being good and self-cultivation were misunderstood and upset; but from the perspective of cultural communication in its positive sense, Ricci's misreading has extended and enriched orthodox theses with subject and direction unsaid before in Confucian history.