the repression, so far as possible, of a motive known to be bad. But no one, I think, will contend that we can always suppress entirely a strong emotion; and such suppression will be especially difficult if we are to do the act to which the wrong impulse prompts; while yet, if that act be clearly a duty which no one else can so properly perform, it would be absurd to say that we ought to omit it because we cannot altogether exclude an objectionable motive. It is sometimes said that, though we may not be able in doing our duty to exclude a bad motive altogether from our minds, it is still possible to refuse to act from it. But I think that this is only possible so far as the details of action to which a right motive would prompt differ to some extent from those to which a wrong motive would prompt. No doubt this is often the case:--thus, in Bentham’s example, a malevolent prosecutor may be prompted to take unfair advantage of his enemy, or cause him needless pain by studied insults; and it is obviously possible for him--and his duty--to resist such promptings. But so far as precisely the same action is prompted by two different motives, both present in my consciousness, I am not conscious of any power to cause this action to be determined by one of the two motives to the exclusion of the other. In other words, while a man can resolve to aim at any end which he conceives as a possible result of his voluntary action, he cannot simultaneously resolve _not_ to aim at any other end which he believes will be promoted by the same action; and if that other end be an object of desire to him, he cannot, while aiming at it, refuse to act from this desire.[157] On the whole, then, I conclude (1) that while many actions are commonly judged to be made _better_ or _worse_ by the presence or absence of certain motives, our judgments of _right_ and _wrong_ strictly speaking relate to intentions, as distinguished from motives;[158] and (2) that while intentions affecting the agent’s own feelings and character are morally prescribed no less than intentions to produce certain external effects, still, the latter form the primary--though not the sole--content of the main prescriptions of duty, as commonly affirmed and understood: but the extent to which this is the case, will become more clear as we proceed.