ABSTRACT
A good point from which to start a discussion of the nature of metaphysical assertions is the Positivist dogma that there are only two kinds of significant proposition: those which, in D. Hume’s terminology, express relations of ideas and those which inform about matter of fact and existence. Hume in his essay on miracles mentions the case of an ‘Indian’ prince who refused to believe that water turned into ice in conditions of great cold. The position of someone who is incredulous about the report that solid buildings disappeared without trace when a nuclear device was exploded is similar to that of this prince. To recognize the existence of a distinct class of categorial principles is already to blunt the weapon which Professor Nowell-Smith has aptly named Hume’s Fork, the instrument Hume relied on in arguing that books of divinity and school metaphysics should be consigned to the flames.
