"A motive is substantially nothing more than pleasure or pain operating in a certain manner. Now pleasure is in itself a good; nay, even setting aside immunity from pain, the only good.... It follows, therefore, immediately and incontestably that there is no such thing as any sort of motive that is in itself a bad one. If motives are good or bad, it is only on account of their effects" (Bentham, _Principles of Morals and Legislation_, ch. x., § 2). Over against this, place the following from Kant: "Pure reason is practical of itself alone, and gives to man a universal law which we call the Moral Law.... If this law determines the will directly [without any reference to objects and to pleasure or pain] the action conformed to it is good in itself; a will whose principle always conforms to this law is good absolutely in every respect and is the supreme condition of all good." If now we recur to the distinction between the "what" and the "how" of action in the light of these quotations, we get a striking result. "What" one does is to pay money, or speak words, or strike blows, and so on. The "how" of this action is the spirit, the temper in which it is done. One pays money with a hope of getting it back, or to avoid arrest for fraud, or because one wishes to discharge an obligation; one strikes in anger, or in self-defense, or in love of country, and so on. Now the view of Bentham says in effect that the "what" is significant, and that the "what" consists ultimately only of the pleasures it produces; the "how" is unimportant save as it incidentally affects resulting feelings. The view of Kant is that the moral core of every act is in its "how," that is in its spirit, its actuating motive; and that the law of reason is the only right motive. _What_ is aimed at is a secondary and (except as determined by the inner spirit, the "how" of the action) an irrelevant matter. In short the separation of the mental and the overt aspects of an act has led to an equally complete separation of its initial spirit and motive from its final content and consequence. And in this separation, one type of theory, illustrated by Kant, takes its stand on the actuating source of the act; the other, that of Bentham, on its outcome. For convenience, we shall frequently refer to these types of theories as respectively the "attitude" and the "content"; the formal and the material; the disposition and the consequences theory. The fundamental thing is that _both_ theories separate character and conduct, disposition and behavior; which of the two is most emphasized being a secondary matter.