Quotation
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“Custom, then, is the great guide of human life.”
David Hume · Empiricism · Enlightenment · 1748
What does it mean?
We do not live by proving that the future must resemble the past. We live by a habit of expectation that makes clocks, bread, and plans possible, and he calls that habit custom. A rival reading treats the discovery as a reason to drop the habit, but he thinks we cannot drop it, and that philosophy should say so instead of inventing a proof it does not have. The sentence is his English in the Enquiry, section 5, answering the problem of induction posed in the section before.
Did David Hume really say this?
The library’s label is Well attested. Hume's English in An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, section 5, part 1. Custom is his name for the habit of expecting the future to resemble the past, which reason cannot justify and life cannot do without. The wording is secure.
Where it comes from
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, section 5, part 1
Approximate date: 1748.
How to use it
Notice one expectation treated as a proof on a Tuesday in Manchester: that the bus which came at 8:10 will come again, or that a colleague who replied yesterday will reply today. Call it custom, which is what he thinks it is, and then decide how much to stake on it. Seeing the habit does not by itself cancel the plan; It changes the kind of confidence the plan is allowed to claim.
A mindset reading
Seeing that a belief is habitual is not the same as abandoning it, and he thinks this particular habit is the guide life cannot do without. A philosophy that announced the habit and then pretended to live without induction would be, on his account, theatre. The honest result is a moderated common life, not a permanent refusal to catch the bus.
Understand the philosophy
Section 4 of the Enquiry asks what reason can show about cause and about the future, and section 5 answers with a naturalistic story rather than with a proof. The key term is custom, the principle by which past conjunctions produce an expectation, without a rational insight into necessary connection. Sceptical philosophy, for him, ends in that moderated common life. The sentence is his own English.
- knowledge
- mind
- society
FAQ
What does it mean?
We do not live by proving that the future must resemble the past. We live by a habit of expectation that makes clocks, bread, and plans possible, and he calls that habit custom. A rival reading treats the discovery as a reason to drop the habit, but he thinks we cannot drop it, and that philosophy should say so instead of inventing a proof it does not have. The sentence is his English in the Enquiry, section 5, answering the problem of induction posed in the section before.
Did David Hume really say this?
Well attested. Hume's English in An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, section 5, part 1. Custom is his name for the habit of expecting the future to resemble the past, which reason cannot justify and life cannot do without. The wording is secure.
Which work is it in?
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, section 5, part 1 Approximate date: 1748.