Pax Hominibus Bonae Voluntatis by Aleister Crowley in International, Dec 1917.

“If we conceive of each individual (with his heredity and environment complete) as a machine constructed to serve one definite purpose and one only, we relieve ourselves at once from all difficulty about moral judgment.” [via]

Consider also:

  1. “Now, as explained above, biology counsels adaptation to circumstance. We shall save ourselves knocks if we do what the other man tells us without any grumbling. We may go so far perhaps as to say ‘brute’ or ‘pig’ when he is not within an ear shot, but even that is a little dangerous, tending rather to the calamity of thinking for ourselves.”
  2. “The idea of moral character is outworn and ridiculous.”
  3. “Having purchased my tie and wept together about Bond street, we began to talk about the war. I said to him: ‘If I had come into this shop (or should I say store) with the firm conviction that you were a dangerous maniac, thirsting for my blood, that you were insensible to every feeling of humanity, that the fiercest and most malignant wild beasts had nothing on you (I believe that is the correct phrase) in the matter of atrocity, I do not think we should have settled this matter of the tie (or should I say neckwear) with the philosophic calm which has characterized our interview up to this point.’ I regret to say that this person was so lost to all sense of patriotism as to agree with me.”
  4. “The economy of nature provides for all types. You cannot feed a horse on rabbits or a snake on grass, in spite of Mr. Swinburne’s remarks about ‘the chewing of some perfumed deadly grass.’ At the same time, we have a perfect right to take sides with either the horse or the snake.”
  5. “The circumstances of the moment must rule our deepest beliefs. In other words we must be opportunists.”