Macbeth: Man Of Established Character

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proper motive which should energize back of his
great deed:

The service and the loyalty I owe, In doing it, pays itself. But while he
destroys the king's enemies, such motives work but dimly at best and are
obscured in his consciousness by more vigorous urges. In the main, as we
have said, his nature violently demands rewards: he fights valiantly in
order that he may be reported in such terms a "valour's minion" and
"Bellona's bridegroom"' he values success because it brings spectacular
fame and new titles and royal favor heaped upon him in public. Now so long
as these mutable goods are at all commensurate with his inordinate desires
- and such is the case, up until he covets the kingship - Macbeth remains
an honorable gentleman. He is not a criminal; he has no criminal tendencies.
But once permit his self-love to demand a satisfaction which cannot be
honorably attained, and he is likely to grasp any dishonorable means to
that end which may be safely employed. In other words, ...

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what is not"; and
his reason is so impeded that he judges, "These solicitings cannot be evil,
cannot be good." Still, he is provided with so much natural good that he is
able to control the apprehensions of his inordinate imagination and decides
to take no step involving crime. His autonomous decision not to commit
murder, however, is not in any sense based upon moral grounds. No doubt he
normally shrinks from the unnaturalness of regicide; but he so far ignores
ultimate ends that, if he could perform the deed and escape its
consequences here upon this bank and shoal of time, he'ld jump the life to
come. Without denying him still a complexity of motives - as kinsman and
subject he may ...

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