Abstract

Most political theorists agree that modern political thought began with Machiavelli and that David Hume was a modern philosopher who made a notable contribution to political theory. Most philosophers do not spend great amounts of time either with Machiavelli or with Hume’s political philosophy, and political theorists largely ignore Hume’s ethics, epistemology, or histories. Still, it would come as little surprise to either philosophers or political theorists that as a modern political theorist, if not as a philosopher, Hume owes some debt to Machiavelli, whose focus on power, interest, and the vicissitudes of fortune set politics and political theory on their path through the nineteenth century.