Quote of the day
Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions.
From Book II of A Treatise of Human Nature, published anonymously in London in 1739, in Hume’s discussion of what motivates action. The sentence’s exact date and place of composition are not established.
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The sentence in its setting
David Hume makes this claim in Book II, Part III, Section III of A Treatise of Human Nature. It is his own philosophical argument, not the speech of a fictional character. The sentence continues by assigning reason the task of serving and obeying the passions.
The first two books appeared anonymously in London in January 1739, although Hume’s later autobiography remembered their publication as the end of 1738. Book III followed in 1740: the complete Treatise therefore dates from 1739–40, but the volume containing this passage belongs to 1739.
What moves us to act
Hume challenges the familiar picture of virtue as reason subduing unruly emotion. Reasoning can discover facts, trace consequences and identify suitable means. It cannot, by itself, make us want an outcome. Desire or aversion supplies the impulse to act; reasoning helps direct it. Reason remains useful; sovereignty is what Hume denies it.
Passion here means rather more than a flash of temper. Hume includes calm, enduring concerns as well as violent feelings. What looks like reason conquering emotion may therefore be a quieter passion prevailing over a fiercer one. Reason can also correct false beliefs and expose ineffective means. This is a theory of motivation, not a licence for folly.
A Scottish voice, an international legacy
Born in Edinburgh in 1711, Hume was a Scottish philosopher, historian and essayist, and a central figure in the Scottish Enlightenment. The Treatise examined human understanding, the passions and morals. His account of motivation formed part of that larger investigation, rather than an isolated flourish.
His essays and six-volume History of England enjoyed greater contemporary popularity than his early philosophy. Yet his investigations of knowledge, causation, religion and morality proved enduringly influential, reaching thinkers including Adam Smith, Kant and Bentham. His contribution to Britain’s intellectual inheritance was distinctly Scottish; its reach was international.