Macbeth 
 
By William Shakespeare
 
Macbeth is presented as a mature man of definitely
established character, successful in certain fields of
activity and enjoying an enviable reputation. We must not
conclude, there, that all his volitions and actions are
predictable; Macbeth's character, like any other man's at a
given moment, is what is being made out of potentialities
plus environment, and no one, not even Macbeth himself, can
know all his inordinate self-love whose actions are
discovered to be-and no doubt have been for a long time-
determined mainly by an inordinate desire for some temporal
or mutable good. 

Macbeth is actuated in his conduct mainly by an inordinate
desire for worldly honors; his delight lies primarily in
buying golden opinions from all sorts of people. But we
must not, therefore, deny him an entirely human complexity
of motives. For example, his fighting in Duncan's service
is magnificent and courageous, and his evident joy in it is
traceable in art to the natural pleasure which accompanies
the explosive expenditure of prodigious physical energy and
the euphoria which follows. He also rejoices no doubt in
the success which crowns his efforts in battle - and so on.
 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, Macbeth has much of
natural good in him unimpaired; environment has conspired
with his nature to make him upright in all his dealings
with those about him. But moral goodness in him is
undeveloped and indeed still rudimentary, for his voluntary
acts are scarcely brought into harmony with ultimate end. 

As he returns from victorious battle, puffed up with
self-love which demands ever-increasing recognition of his
greatness, the demonic forces of evil-symbolized by the
Weird Sisters-suggest to his inordinate imagination the
splendid prospect of attaining now the greatest mutable
good he has ever desired. These demons in the guise of
witches cannot read his inmost thoughts, but from
observation of facial expression and other bodily
manifestations they surmise with comparative accuracy what
passions drive him and what dark desires await their
fostering. Realizing that he wishes the kingdom, they
prophesy that he shall be king. They cannot thus compel his
will to evil; but they do arouse his passions and stir up a
vehement and inordinate apprehension of the imagination,
which so perverts the judgment of reason that it leads his
will toward choosing means to the desired temporal good.
Indeed his imagination and passions are so vivid under this
evil impulse from without that "nothing is but 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.