[157] A further source of confusion between “intention” and “motive” arises from the different points of view from which either may be judged. Thus an act may be one of a series which the agent purposes to do for the attainment of a certain end: and our moral judgment of it may be very different, according as we judge the intention of the particular act, or the general intention of the series regarded as a whole. Either point of view is legitimate, and both are often required; for we commonly recognise that, of the series of acts which a man does to attain (_e.g._) any end of ambition, some may be right or allowable, while others are wrong; while the general intention to attain the end by wrong means, if necessary, as well as right--
“Get place and wealth, if possible with grace; If not, by any means get wealth and place”--
is clearly a wrong intention. So again, in judging a motive to be good or bad, we may either consider it simply in itself, or in connexion with other balancing and controlling motives--either actually present along with it, or absent when they ought to be present. Thus in the above case we do not commonly think the desire for wealth or rank bad in itself; but we think it bad as the sole motive of a statesman’s public career. It is easy to see that one or other of these different distinctions is apt to blend with and confuse the simple distinction between intention and motive.
[158] The view that moral judgments relate primarily or most properly to motives will be more fully discussed in chap. xii. of this Book.
[159] I use these alternative terms in order to avoid the Free Will Controversy.
[160] Many religious persons would probably say that the motive of obedience or love to God was the highest. But those who take this view would generally say that obedience and love are due to God as a Moral Being, possessing the attributes of Infinite Wisdom and Goodness, and not otherwise: and if so, these religious motives would seem to be substantially identical with regard for duty and love of virtue, though modified and complicated by the addition of emotions belonging to relations between persons.
[161] Locke’s _Essay_, II. c. 28, §§ 5, 6.
[163] I do not myself usually employ the antithesis of Form and Matter in philosophical exposition, as it appears to me open to the charge of obscurity and ambiguity. In the present case we may interpret “formal rightness” as denoting at once a _universal_ and _essential_, and a _subjective_ or _internal_ condition of the rightness of actions.