IT HAS often been correctly remarked that a pronounced aristocratic preference informed the political thought of David Hume. This paper will attempt to show: 1) the philosophical basis for an aristocratic approach to politics which Hume provided in his logic, ethics, and esthetics; 2) the manner in which this aristocratic preference influenced his political thought; 3) the fact that this preference represented, in its various manifestations, a normative intrusion upon his experimental method; and 4) the sources of this preference in Hume's personality and in the cultural and social values shared by "gentlemen" of Britain's Augustan Age.