In An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, David Hume demonstrates how there is no rational way to make any claims about future occurrences. According to his way of thinking, knowledge of matters of fact comes from previous experience. From building on this rationale, Hume goes on to prove how, as humans, we can only make inferences (as opposed to statements) on what will happen in the future, based on our experiences of the past. Indeed he points out that we are incorrect to believe that we are justified in using our experience of the past as a means of evidence of what will happen in the future. Since we have only experience of the past, we can only offer propositions of the future based on what we have known thus far.
             Hume classifies 'knowledge' into two categories: "Relations of Ideas" and "Matters of Fact." (240) "Relations of ideas" are either intuitively or demonstratively certain, such as in Mathematics (240): it can be affirmed that 2 + 2 equals 4. On the other hand, "Matters of fact" - that is, the ideas that are directly caused by impressions - are not ascertained in the same manner as "Relations of Ideas." With "matters of fact," there is no certainty in establishing evidence of truth since every contradiction is possible.
             Hume uses the example of the sun rising in the future to demonstrate how, as humans, we are unjustified in making predictions of the future that are based on past occurrences. As humans, we tend to use the principle of induction to predict what will occur in the future. Out of habit, we assume that the sun will rise every day, like it has done in the past; but we have no basis of actual truth to make this justification. Claiming that the sun will rise tomorrow is not, according to Hume, false; but nor is it true. Hume illustrates that "the contrary of every matter of fact is still possible, because it can never imply a contradiction and is conceived by the mind with the same
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