Abstract: Discussions on Hume's social political theory have been dominated by two major perspectives of civic humanism and natural jurisprudence, which focus on Hume's theory of justice and civic virtues but pay little attention to his theory on state.This paper looks into the work of political theorists such as Istvan Hont and Paul Sagar to explore the important position of Hume's state theory and clarify the internal logic of a nation's evolution from barbaric state to civilized state. Hume's state theory contains both normative and empirical dimensions. In the normative sense, the political system can be categorized into barbarism and civilization. In Hume's view, only a civilized government can maintain social stability, freedom and prosperity. Its ideal form is a scientifically designed republican government. In the empirical sense, the legitimacy of the state rests upon public opinions and its formation has to be an innate historical process, and has to change along with changing economic and social conditions. Hume, on one hand, points out how the evolution of commerce, custom and reason affects public opinions and promotes the change of politics from barbarism to civilization; however, on the other hand, due to the prevalent superstition among people, he also suggests that "prudent politicians" should take an incremental approach to promote justice and freedom in order to maintain authority and avoid possible risks.Hume deals with the contradiction of the twin dimensions with his division of mankind into two classes of "abstruse thinkers" (philosophers) and "shallow thinkers"(the bulk of mankind).

Key words: Hume, state theory, republic, public opinion, commercial society