Coleridge has aptly designated this action of his mind: "The motive-hunting of a motiveless malignity.
He was forcibly struck with the blind and comparatively motiveless pugnacity of the Squire's conduct.
But the vivider and the keener grew this new mental life of Elsmere's, the more constant became his sense of soreness as to that foolish and motiveless quarrel which divided him from the Squire.
Iago's soliloquy, the motive-hunting of a motiveless malignity--how awful it is!
Oh, his midnight thoughts raced, as yours and mine have raced, when we have been struck by sorrow, or blackmail, or motiveless malice!
That, though inconceivable, a motiveless volition would, if conceived, be conceived as morally worthless, only shows our impotence more clearly.
No judge would have allowed counsel to have asked such a motiveless question.
Unless you can imagine a motiveless maniac dashing through a wood and shooting the first comer, you can hardly conceive any other cause than jealousy for such a crime as this.
I cannot imagine a crime so motiveless as that which you suggest," he said thoughtfully.
It was the motiveless malignity of the deed which fastened it on Bourgonef; or rather, it was the absence of any known motive elsewhere which assured me that I had detected the motive in him.
What can be conceived more unnatural and motiveless than this brutal resolve?
He showed that myth displayed a regularity of development not to be accounted for by motiveless fancy, but by laws of formation.
The remainder—Iago’s soliloquy—the motive-hunting of a motiveless malignity—how awful it is!
This has always seemed to me the only way of accounting for instances of utterly motiveless and abnormal wickedness and cruelty.
To its existence is often to be traced the motiveless crimes of the young.
To loathe flesh and blood, to will the annihilation of flesh and blood, is to be a victim of that original "motiveless malignity" which opposes itself to the creative force.
The Gauls brought this kind of weaving with them from the East, and probably invented the pattern, if such a motiveless design can be so called.
An opportunity was still open to him of becoming the friend and ally of Rome; why should he adopt this motiveless attitude of hostility?
He was forcibly struck with the blind and comparatively motiveless pugnacity of the squire's conduct.
But the vivider and the keener grew this new mental life of Elsmere's, the more constant became his sense of soreness as to that foolish and motiveless quarrel which divided him from the squire.
For not the wildest nightmare dream would seem more mad and motiveless than such a horror as this.
