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Click on the phrases to see them in context. The original texts by Immanuel Kant and David Hume are available from the Gutenberg Projet.
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For, in this case, it is quite foreign and unessential to the nature of things, and cannot be cognized from the general laws of nature. Metaphysic, therefore--that of nature, as well as that of ethics, but in an especial manner the criticism which forms the propaedeutic to all the operations of reason--forms properly that department of knowledge which may be termed, in the truest sense of the word, philosophy. All this is the effect of the natural and inherent principles and passions of human nature; and as these passions and principles are inalterable, it may be thought, that our conduct, which depends on them, must be so too, and that it would be in vain, either for moralists or politicians, to tamper with us, or attempt to change the usual course of our actions, with a view to public interest. Here we must make a distinction betwixt those actions of animals, which are of a vulgar nature, and seem to be on a level with their common capacities, and those more extraordinary instances of sagacity, which they sometimes discover for their own preservation, and the propagation of their species. When we receive any matter of fact upon human testimony, our faith arises from the very same origin as our inferences from causes to effects, and from effects to causes; nor is there anything but our experience of the governing principles of human nature, which can give us any assurance of the veracity of men. As to the third sense of the word, it is certain, that both vice and virtue are equally artificial, and out of nature.