Q0188

David Hume

A verified English rendering from the curated archive.

English

Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.
Thinker David Hume
School Empiricism
Source A Treatise of Human Nature, II.3.3
Theme Reason
Another quotation More from this thinker

Source context

This English passage is associated with A Treatise of Human Nature, II.3.3, within the tradition of Empiricism. The wording below is a verified rendering prepared for careful reading rather than a claim of unique translation authority.

A short reading

Read in the register of reason, the sentence asks the reader to test an assumption rather than to collect a slogan. In David Hume's wider work, similar claims are usually offered as prompts for judgment: what would have to be true for the sentence to hold, and what would follow if it did?

How to cite this quotation

APA: David Hume. (n.d.). Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them. In Philosophy Blind Box. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0188

MLA: David Hume. “Reason is, and ought only to be the….” Philosophy Blind Box, https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0188.

Chicago: David Hume. “Reason is, and ought only to be the….” Philosophy Blind Box. Accessed 2026. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0188.

Same thinker

More from David Hume

  1. A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence.
  2. For my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other.
  3. Reason is wholly inactive, and can never be the source of so active a principle as conscience, or a sense of morals.
  4. Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions.
  5. Custom, then, is the great guide of human life.

All quotations by David Hume

Same theme

More on reason

  1. Let us not become haters of argument — that is a great danger to the soul.
  2. Nothing can be created from nothing by divine agency.
  3. Therefore death is nothing to us, and does not concern us at all.
  4. Faith seeking understanding.
  5. Plurality should not be posited without necessity.

Browse the reason theme