§ 134 Intention and Motive
A wrongful act is seldom intended and desired for its own sake. The wrongdoer has in view some ulterior object which he desires to obtain by means of it. The evil which he does to another, he does and desires only for the sake of some resulting good which he will obtain for himself. He intends the attainment of this ulterior object, no less than he intends the wrongful act itself. His intent, therefore, is twofold, and is divisible into two distinct portions, which we may distinguish as his immediate and his ulterior intent. The former is that which relates to the wrongful act itself; the latter is that which passes beyond the wrongful act, and relates to the object or series of objects for the sake of which the act is done. The immediate intent of the thief is to appropriate another person’s money, while his ulterior intent may be to buy food with it or to pay a debt. The ulterior intent is called the motive of the act.
The immediate intent is that part of the total intent which is coincident with the wrongful act itself; the ulterior intent or motive is that part of the total intent which lies outside the boundaries of the wrongful act. For just as the act is not necessarily confined within the limits of the intent, so the intent is not necessarily confined within the limits of the act. The wrongdoer’s immediate intent, if he has one, is his purpose to commit the wrong; his ulterior intent, or motive, is his purpose in committing it. Every wrongful act may raise two distinct questions with respect to the intent of the doer. The first of these is: How did he do the act—intentionally or accidentally? The second is: If he did it intentionally, why did he do it? The first is an inquiry into his immediate intent; the second is concerned with his ulterior intent, or motive.
The ulterior intention of one wrongful act may be the commission of another. I may make a die with intent to coin bad money; I may coin bad money with intent to utter it; I may utter it with intent to defraud. Each of these acts is or may be a distinct criminal offence, and the intention of any one of them is immediate with respect to that act itself, but ulterior with respect to all that go before it in the series.
A person’s ulterior intent may be complex instead of simple; he may act from two or more concurrent motives instead of from one only. He may institute a prosecution, partly from a desire to see justice done, but partly also from ill-will towards the defendant. He may pay one of his creditors preferentially on the eve of bankruptcy, partly from a desire to benefit him at the expense of the others, and partly from a desire to gain some advantage for himself. Now the law, as we shall see later, sometimes makes liability for an act depend upon the motive with which it is done. The Bankruptcy Act, for example, regards as fraudulent any payment made by a debtor immediately before his bankruptcy with intent to prefer one of his creditors to the others. In all such cases the presence of mixed or concurrent motives raises a difficulty of interpretation. The phrase “with intent to,” or its equivalents, may mean any one of at least four different things:—(1) That the intent referred to must be the sole or exclusive intent; (2) that it is sufficient if it is one of several concurrent intents; (3) that it must be the chief or dominant intent, any others being subordinate or incidental; (4) that it must be a determining intent, that is to say, an intent in the absence of which the act would not have been done, the remaining purposes being insufficient motives by themselves. It is a question of construction which of those meanings is the true one in the particular case.343