Abstract

This article argues that the origin of the political principles and categories that Hume sets as essential to the preservation of political power and its effective exercise can be traced into the division of political agent that occurs as a result of the institution of justice and government in the origin of society. Their different roles and different degrees of freedom will determine, since then, and through political action and its irreversibility, the categories and the fundamental problems that Hume´s political philosophy should answer. From that framework, the panoply of political power preservation principles that Hume exposes in the Essays will be analyzed as a reflection of that original event and its particular evolution.